Jim Harrison writes like he is reckoning with life, death, love, God–you name it. He writes like his life is on the line, his soul is trying to come out through language–that’s how much is at stake.
His “Essential Poems” book frequently travels with me. This morning it was:
“The stillness of this earth which we pass through with the precise speed of our dreams.”
that washed over me, from Harrison’s poem, “Returning to Earth.”
“I Believe” is a manifesto of things in the world that he puts faith in.
Steep drop-offs, empty swimming pools, raw garlic, used tires, abandoned farmhouses, leaky wooden boats, turbulent rivers, the primrose growing out of a cow skull. What a list! These are things I know I believe in as I read his list because each thing comes powerfully to mind–smells, pictures, feelings. This is a list of beliefs that come from experience and hard-nosed reflection. Everything on it has passed the test.
Reading Harrison calls me to write things that absolutely have to be said–something relevant, something that is working on me and that has to come out or risk burning my soul, not an academic or intellectual game, not something that sounds nice or clever–something that comes out of an ongoing wrestling match or dance or conversation with the Spirit.
This a Mark year for the prescribed church readings–most of the Gospel readings this year come from Mark’s account of the good news. For Palm Sunday our in-person services did a dramatic reading of Mark’s account of the Passion (Last Supper, betrayal, arrest, crucifixion, death and burial–the suffering) of Jesus, with readers playing different parts. On our Zoom service, we divided up the reading between a few of us. Mark’s Gospel is the shortest of the four, the writer doesn’t add fluff or niceties, there is no birth narrative, no Christmas, and the account ends with women running bewildered from an empty tomb. Reading Mark’s Passion account, he doesn’t stop to answer questions, he leaves those up to us to ask, wrestle with, and answer.
I think the writer of Mark and Jim Harrison would get along. Both of them had stories they had to tell. Holy Week, the week leading up to Easter, is full of those kind of Jesus stories. It moves me more than any other week of the church calendar. This Friday evening, Good Friday, we will have a service built around the seven different last words/phrases attributed to Jesus in the different Gospel accounts of his death. Then someone will respond–something spoken, read, sung–hopefully pulling those in attendance into the story.
The Gospel writers chose to write down a story that was being told orally, for fear of losing it. They knew it was too big to risk letting it go. And each of them went about it a bit differently, each giving something of themselves and their reckoning with the good news and the Spirit.
When I read Harrison’s poetry, I know that what he is saying is vital to who he was. It conveys what he loved, what he struggled with, what he laughed at, what he cried over, and what lit up his sense of wonder; the curiosity that was in his bones. He was a rough outdoorsman who lived on a farm in Michigan near where he was born. He fished, he ate, he drank, he traveled–he lived.
I hope I can find the words, the pictures, the moments in my life where I connect to love, to wonder, to Creation, to God and to the story of God and humanity that is unfolding through all of us and transform and transmute it all through the right words.
I hope you find your own moments and experiences and transform them into your own art–whether dance, song, painting, poem, carving, or your life itself as a work of art. God is a creator and we, in God’s image, are also meant to create.
One of my favorite lines of writing comes from the beginning of a Harrison poem called “Tomorrow,” where he talks about being blindsided by a new kind of wonder, the kind we haven’t experienced before. He writes:
“I’m hoping to be astonished tomorrow by I don’t know what”
The stars or the sunrise or sunset reflecting off the river; the smell and feeling of earned sweat; how excited your dog is when you walk in the door; a book you can’t put down or stop thinking about; the first sip of coffee or tea in the morning; jumping in the river, lake, or ocean when it’s colder than you expect; the memory of someone who shaped you; a conversation with someone you love when you don’t know what either of you will say next; an answered prayer; exploring somewhere you’ve never been; sacrificing something important for someone else–someone else sacrificing something important for you; knowing in your heart, soul, and bones that you are loved.
I’m hoping to be astonished tomorrow by I don’t. know. what. And I believe.
Background: Last Sunday’s Gospel reading was Matthew 21:33-46, known as The Parable of the Wicked Tenants. It’s the second of three parables Jesus presents to the Temple priests, elders, and Pharisees, painting a harsh picture of how Israel is not living up to their name in their disobedience to God. This is the text of a homily I presented to the Christ Church Easton Zoom prayer service. Since our time with the Gospel is also a discussion, questions and answers people had changed and shaped things somewhat differently than what is written here.
“Listen to the Overlooked”
This conversation between Jesus and the chief priests and Pharisees began last week for us, when Jesus entered the Temple and was grilled by the priests and the elders about who he thought he was and where he gets his authority. And Jesus gave them a parable about a father asking two sons to go work in the vineyard, the first said he wouldn’t go, but then did, the second said that he would go and then didn’t. And Jesus made sure they caught onto the chief priests and the Temple leadership being the second son, who talks a big game, but then doesn’t do what they said they would.
And now Jesus takes it further. He relates the parable of the wicked tenants to them. This isn’t about saying one thing and then failing to deliver. This reaches another level. It’s outright disobedience and being self-serving despite all they’ve been given.
Michael Green in his book, “The Message of Matthew,” says:
“This parable unveils the flagrant disloyalty of the leaders of Israel. God had given them a wonderful vineyard to cultivate; he had given them all the necessary equipment to do the job (a winepress, a watchtower for shelter and burglar patrol, a wall to keep out the wild pigs and other trespassers). He had put his trust in them. And what did they do? The history of Israel tells the story starkly. In brief, they appropriated his goods, rejected his prophets, denied his rightful claims on them and killed his Son. They were given freedom as well as trust, but the day of reckoning is at hand: they will be held accountable for the way they have exercised that freedom.”
This is helpful to know how Jesus felt about the priests and Pharisees. In a reading we haven’t discussed in this part of the lectionary, the start of Jesus entering the Temple here is him driving out all who were selling and buying and overturning the tables of the money changers. This is the time of table-flipping Jesus. And now he is telling it like it is.
Jesus is calling out those who have been charged with doing God’s work, but who instead are looking after their own assumed power. But let’s not tell ourselves that what we are reading is simply supposed to point out and remind us of the disobedience of past people and generations—is it possible that church today, that we might also sometimes be the wicked tenants who tried to act like the vineyard was theirs and ignore the will of the owner?
Jesus then goes into quoting Psalm 118 verbatim when he says:
“The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.”
In this case, the SON and the STONE can be thought of as the same. Where they are ignoring and casting off John and Jesus, a new movement will begin that will have them as the main cornerstone, the foundation.
Let’s take a step back and look at some reasons why Jesus might be so upset with the chief priests and the Pharisees. What do you think?
They are putting the letter of the law over the intent.
They have ignored John the Baptist and now Jesus.
They are more worried about maintaining their own power than they are about the welfare of their people.
They are being exclusive rather than inclusive.
They are ignoring their responsibility to the poor, the sick, the downcast.
And what is it that Jesus is doing that is different? What do we see when we look at Jesus’s ministry?
He includes those who have been excluded—tax collectors, prostitutes, sinners, and when called upon, Gentiles.
He is healing the sick and caring for the poor.
He isn’t concerned about status or worldly power.
When it comes to things like the Sabbath, Jesus is following the intent of the law, not the letter of the law when it comes to helping people who are hurting.
Jesus views himself as a servant first, he is there to help, and to lead by serving.
Let’s fast forward to our time. Even though we wear his logo and worship his name, are we still ignoring Jesus? What would it look like for the church to be obedient, to follow him and live as he did now?
Talking about the rejected stone, the rejected Son, Fr. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and writer who we are studying, says:
“Jesus reminds us that sometimes it is the overlooked person who is the one we need to pay attention to.”
Who are the overlooked people now who we might want to pay attention to?
I doubt anyone can hear the things that Jesus taught and look at the life he lived and say, “no, that’s just a bad idea.” I wonder if part of what happened to the Pharisees and to the world today is that our hearts are out of step with God and that gets in the way of our following.
I’ve been reading Meister Eckhart lately, who lived from 1260 to 1328. He was a German Catholic theologian, mystic, and a part of the Dominican Order of Preachers. He is someone who seems to help me get out of my own way and do a better job of being open and listening for what God might want to say to me.
Let’s try a couple of his sayings and see if there is something helpful:
“Breaking Through”
Too often I decide what my life should be and whether
there is from in it for You while You sit in a deeper
place within me, wondering what it will take for me to
make more of all the things in my life—the good and
the bad—and so to learn to break through to find You
in all that is and let You take form in me in all that
I was and am and will be.
I wonder if too often our own ideas of what we should do push out any room in our hearts for God to operate. Did the Pharisees and chief priests have such fixed ideas of who God was and how he would speak to them, that it prevented them from stepping out in faith to trust the new direction John and Jesus offered?
On top of that, I wonder if what Jesus was modeling, what he was showing those in power was too radical, too much of a change for them when they came to enjoy so much the power and the status they had.
Here is one more from Meister Eckhart on what it looks like to follow Jesus:
“You Rise by Stooping Down”
With You everything is upside down
and inside out, for You rise by
stooping down, and call me
to follow in the footsteps
of your descent, where I find
that You and I are one
In being and even in power.
Jesus rises by stooping down. He became incarnate, he humbled himself, and he called and showed himself to be a servant. Where we are in Matthew’s Gospel is Jesus on his way to the cross, to his death. He is trying to get everything he can across to his disciples, as well as being critical of the Pharisees, giving them another chance to repent and obey.
We have seven Sundays left in the lectionary year. Something to consider in the way these readings are presented to us. We read and reflected on Matthew’s telling of Jesus being arrested, crucified, and resurrected earlier this year, in Lent, Holy Week, and Easter.
We finish the church’s year with this series of teachings, warnings, and parables, and then November 26 is “Christ the King” Sunday, and the last reading we will get from Matthew before moving into Advent and the new year for the church, will be Matthew 25:31-46. Those will be the words we hear and reflect on to close this Gospel and then begin our Mark year.
Does anyone know the story?
Here is a key takeaway:
“Truly I tell you, just as you did (or did not do) it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did (or did not do) it to me.”
Background: Last Saturday evening there was a wedding on Saturday evening at Christ Church Easton, so we moved our Alive @ 5 contemporary music service into the Parish Hall and served dinner at the end of the service. The band was in the style of MTV Unplugged and the Parish Hall was full of good food and fellowship. The Gospel from the lectionary last weekend was Matthew 18:15-20, where Jesus outlines how to deal with conflict/sin between people in the community. With our Rector/Pastor officiating the wedding, I preached at our Saturday evening service.
“Bearing With Each Other”
“Christian conflict resolution” is not a class that would have a waiting list to get into. It comes off a bit like a root canal—necessary, but not something to look forward to.
But when you look around society and how we deal with feeling wronged, we do need some guidance. These days there are a lot of passive-aggressive outlets out there. What are some notable passive-aggressive ways to not actually deal with conflict?
If your neighbor has done something to you, you might go through the neighborhood association, or contact the town. When a friend makes us angry, we might defriend or block them on social media, or write huffy, angry comments under something we disagree with. Politicallythese days, when someone slights or disagrees with someone, the goal is to discredit, belittle, shame, and have others pile on. Nothing is resolved. And resentment becomes more deeply rooted.
When someone wrongs us, when someone sins against us, we want things to be made right, for us. Our self-righteousness demands satisfaction.
That’s not what’s going on in today’s reading. Jesus is looking at this earliest church community, not society at large. And he is giving instructions for the benefit of the sinner, whose actions are pulling him/her/them outside of the community. Jesus is giving the disciples steps to restore that person, to keep the community together.
What an unmodern concept—to care about the sinner, and about the community, more than our own sense of justice.
This is a teaching about reconciliation, and it’s reconciliation based on love and forgiveness.
It’s not easy. It’s counter-cultural. It doesn’t make sense with how our laws are written.
But community can’t be built on the law. Legalism won’t save us. If you look at most laws, including those in Scripture, they’re drawn up around doing no harm. And that’s not bad—those kinds of laws help keep us safe.
When it comes to a faith community, safety isn’t enough.
Jesus doesn’t summarize the commandments by saying, “don’t harm God and don’t harm your neighbors.”
We’re called to love.
God doesn’t want us to coexist (though the sentiment on those blue bumper stickers is better than the alternative of wiping each other completely out of existence).
God wants us to thrive. To help one another. To be there for each other. To love one another.
Both Paul, writing today’s New Testament reading, and Jesus, speaking in today’s Gospel, want to make sure we get the message loud and clear.
When we love, we more than fulfill the law. And Jesus looks at conflict within the church community through love.
When there is conflict, where someone is going astray: deal with it, fix it, work it out. This is where things get hard for us, especially in a church. Historically, churches have publicly fallen on their faces with conflict resolution on big issues. Look at how many scandals and atrocities have been dealt with by the church, by transferring an offending clergyperson somewhere else—out of sight, out of mind, not our problem. That’s conflict, that’s crime, and that’s reconciliation on a different scale, but it’s real and something the church has to deal with in order to be the example it needs to be in the world.
As parishioners, on a much lesser scale, when it comes to having an issue with someone in the congregation, we might find it easier to find another church rather than work through something difficult when someone has wronged us.
Avoidance is an easier path than reconciling. And there is a cost to that.
Best-selling author, theologian and Bishop N.T. Wright says:
“Reconciliation is a huge issue today. We can see the results of not doing it: suicide bombs, campaigns of terror, heavy-handed repression by occupying forces. That’s on the large scale. On the small scale, we see broken marriages, shattered families, feuds between neighbors, divided churches.”
Jesus knows how hard it is going to be for the early church to stick together in community, especially once he is gone. And he goes straight at things, right up front.
He says, first, try to work it out between the two of you. If that doesn’t work, take a couple people with you. Expand that circle slowly. Allow the person to save face as much as possible.
Jesus doesn’t say—talk about that person, gossip, try to get everyone on your side. Instead, deal with it quickly and between the two of you.
Let’s remember the goal: bringing the sinner back into the fold, keeping the community together. All while dealing with what happened.
Here is N.T. Wright again:
“Forgiveness doesn’t mean saying “it didn’t really happen” or “it didn’t really matter.” Forgiveness is when it did happen and it did matter, and you’re going to deal with it and end up loving and accepting one another again anyway.”
We are sinners, all of us. We all mess up. We all fall off the path we are trying to walk. Forgiveness, grace, love—how God deals with us, is how we are to deal with each other.
What does the church need? Reconciliation (that’s our word of the night). The mission of the church is to reconcile the world to God. To do that, we have to model it in our midst. Not in some abstract way, but right down into the details of our lives and how we treat each other.
There’s a part of this reading that is easy to miss. Jesus tells the disciples that when an offender refuses to listen even to the church, “let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”
Let them go, as outsiders.
What do we know about Matthew from the text a few weeks ago? He’s a tax collector. And Jesus still loved and restored him. Even in continued disagreement and going separate ways, the goal is still restoration.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer has a little book called “Life Together,” where he looks at Christian community. He says that when it comes to ministry in a community, listening, active helpfulness, and bearing with others are foundational. He says it is hard to bear the sin of another person because it breaks fellowship with God and with his brother.
“It is only in bearing with him that the great grace of God becomes wholly plain. To cherish no contempt for the sinner but rather to prize the privilege of bearing him means not to have to give him up as lost, to be able to accept him, to preserve fellowship with him through forgiveness… As Christ bore and received us as sinners so we in fellowship may bear and receive sinners into the fellowship of Jesus Christ through the forgiving of sins.”
And Bonhoeffer ties it together saying that “where ministry of listening, active helpfulness, and bearing with others is faithfully performed, the ultimate and highest service can also be rendered, namely, the ministry of the Word of God.”
If as a community, we aren’t oriented towards listening, actively helping, and bearing with others, we are going to have a hard time ministering the Word of God to others. Because where would it be found in our lives and our community?
And then we get to these incredible last lines of the reading: “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”
How many people have heard that line before? How many have used it in the context of gathering together? And how many realized that Matthew includes those words from Jesus, here, when he is talking about sin, disagreement, and reconciliation—not at the Last Supper, or the Sermon on the Mount, or some hopeful healing or miracle. It’s here, where or when we are struggling, maybe even divided, that we need to remember and call on his presence among us.
If we as the church are going to reconcile the world to God, we aren’t going to do it on our own. We need God’s help. Thankfully, God has already done the work, in and through Jesus, who is with us, always.
And if we are going to call on his name, and continue his work, we’ve got to work through the tough stuff, not brush it under the rug and pretend it didn’t happen.
We’ve got to listen, we’ve got to help, we’ve got to bear with each other. That’s what love and forgiveness look like.
Amen.
Bonus quote, which we used in our Zoom discussion about the Gospel reading on Sunday morning. The quote comes from Padraig O’Tuama’s book, “Daily Prayer With the Corrymeela Community”–
“Listening is a sacrament when the topic is important, and when strife divides people in small places, the sacrament of listening is vital. So many people and so many places in the world have difficult relationships with difference. We seek to practice the art of hospitality in the places of hostility, and in so doing practice kindness in places the most in need of kindness.”
Background: this is the text of the sermon I gave on July 29 and 30 in response to the reading in Matthew’s Gospel of the parable of the mustard seed and other parables that are grouped together and more so in response to Fr. Bill Ortt, the rector/priest at Christ Church Easton for the last 24 years announcing that he will be retiring later this year. He then left for an already-scheduled vacation.
“Beware of Mustard Seeds”
Looking at a mustard seed, there is nothing that tells you or hints at the growth it is capable of. The tiniest of seeds, it can grow to a height of eight to ten feet. But you wouldn’t know it at first sight.
I came to Christ Church in August 2016, looking for a church home. I walked in to the 9:15am contemporary service, sat about halfway up the pews (on the left side when entering the church) on the window side. The greeters that day were Matt and Kelsey Spiker, who I’d never met. I came here because I was going through a kind of spiritual awakening, I had been attending Real Life Chapel across town for a year, had started studying and writing about the Bible—I was getting stirred up and I wasn’t sure what to do with it all. I knew A.K. and Susie Leight were members here, and I had always thought highly of them, so I gave it a try.
I could tell from that first service that I had found my home. Then I went over to Rise Up Coffee afterwards and got in line right behind Kelsey and Matt and got talking to them.
I think I can speak for the Spikers when I say that none of us came to Christ Church thinking this was going to be somewhere we were going to work or that both Kelsey and I would discern calls to the priesthood.
Those things came from a combination of Fr. Bill Ortt and the Holy Spirit, both waking up something we had that was latent inside us. Something probably about the size of a mustard seed.
Beware of mustard seeds.
Neither of us felt a call to work at “a” church or for “the” church, we felt called to work for THIS church, and at the chance to work for Fr. Bill. We weren’t the first or the last to feel that. Carol Callaghan became a deacon while working here; Barbara Coleman was ordained a deacon here in 2020 after being a part of our congregation; Susie Leight discerned her call to the priesthood during her 20 years here; along with Kelsey and I—Joanne Fisher and Jessica Stehle are fellow postulants and seminarians working toward the priesthood who have come through Christ Church and Fr. Bill; and Kimberly Cox leaves for Virginia Theological Seminary four days after she gets back from the Peru Mission Trip.
That’s more than a notion. That’s the Holy Spirit coming through this place in waves, and Fr. Bill has been casually handing out surfboards, with a smile.
And that doesn’t even begin to touch on the music ministries or the lay ministries that have sprung up and the people along the way who have blossomed in their callings and become instrumental to the life and community of this church and the broader community. We could be here for a couple hours if we started listing names.
Beware of mustard seeds.
This is not a church for the casual observer. If you open yourself to it, you are likely to get caught up in a call. And for 24 years, Fr. Bill has helped create those opportunities and encouraged people on their paths.
There is a common thread to the parables in today’s reading:
The mustard seed that someone took and sowed in a field
The yeast that a woman took and mixed in
A treasure hidden in a field that someone found and hid and sold everything he owned and went and bought the field
A merchant finds a pearl of great value, sold everything he had and bought it
A net that was thrown into the sea, drawn ashore full of fish and sorted.
Every one of these things involves taking action. It asks the person in the story to do something. God doesn’t just do it for us, He wants us to be active participants in His work. In another well-known Gospel story, when it comes to feeding the 5,000, Jesus doesn’t do it all by himself, he uses the disciples to help.
If you’ve been around Fr. Bill, you know he likes things to be done to a certain high standard. He jokes around that that standard is mediocrity. We all know better. The thing about it though, if you look at the different ministries that have grown during his time here—Stephen Ministry, Food Ministry, Outreach ministries, Youth Ministry, Adult Education, Contemporary Music, the list goes on—none of them have his fingerprints heavily on them. In those ministries you will find the hands, and the sweat, and the tears, and the joy of those who have done the work, with his encouragement.
You’ll hear him say that life, and faith, are about the questions we ask—and that we should try to ask the right questions. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been in a meeting with Fr. Bill, thinking I have a good idea, and he’ll ask a few questions, that will send me back to the drawing board, to either scrap something, or to help it go from being a good idea, to a great idea.
His questions can serve as both sunshine and rain to seeds looking to grow.
Beware of mustard seeds.
I think about the phrase, “going to church.” Do you go to church?—someone may ask us or we might ask someone else. That sounds very nice. Something you do for an hour a week and it sounds like a fine thing to tell other people. “Yes, I go to church.”
One of the reasons I was drawn further and further into Christ Church is that there are so many opportunities to do so much more than “going to church.” Anyone who wants to can jump in with two feet—Bible studies, small groups, bands, choirs, youth ministry, hospitality. All it takes is the willingness to try. But like in our parables today, it may change everything.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer distinguishes between cheap grace and costly grace. He says:
“Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price for which the merchant will sell all his goods… it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.”
“Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a person must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a [person] their life, and it is grace because it gives a [person] the only true life.”
For 24 years, Fr. Bill has talked about and tried to model costly grace for Christ Church. The kind of grace that changes lives. That can change our lives. What a gift that is.
Last week when he told the staff he was retiring, after the stun-gun effect wore off, we all asked how we could walk beside him through these next few months, how we could support him. I think as a congregation, we have an opportunity to make these next few months an incredibly special time in the life of the congregation, and in the life of the Ortt family.
This is part of the gift that Fr. Bill has given us, and it is in character and in keeping with how he has always done things. We are entering into a process that this church hasn’t gone through in a quarter century. The majority of the congregation who are here now have only known Fr. Bill as the rector.
The process of sending him off with our gratitude, of finding an interim clergyperson or people to come in for the next year, of putting together a search committee, and finding the next rector of St. Peter’s Parish is something that can bring us together and connect us in ways we can’t even imagine yet.
We’ve had a number of small groups read Fr. Gregory Boyle’s book, “Tattoos on the Heart.” It’s an incredible story about a Jesuit priest’s calling to help love and rehabilitate Los Angeles gang members and it has changed the world there. And it has grown into a community that will continue after Fr. Greg is gone.
That’s a bit of the gift Fr. Bill is giving us. Now it’s our turn. Now it’s our time.
We are a community who puts our trust in God. I am going to drop a couple of Frederick Buechner quotes on you here. Buechner wrote:
“Wherever people love each other and are true to each other and take risks for each other, God is with them and they are doing God’s will.”
I believe that describes who we are as a community and how God has been and continues to be with us.
We are entering into a time of prayer and of gratitude, which really is an amazing way to spend all our time. In this case, it is gratitude for the gifts, the time, the friendship, and the leadership that we’ve been given. And for what is to come. And the hope is that prayer and gratitude will lead us into discernment for the way forward.
Today, and every day is unique. This time we find ourselves in, “for the time that we have,”—as Fr. Bill likes to quote Tolkien’s Gandalf—is a time we can bring special attention to relationships; to who and what we are grateful for; and who and how we want to be both individually and collectively.
As we walk forward together, I’ll let Buechner touch on how special this is:
“In the entire history of the universe, let alone in your own history, there has never been another day just like today, and there will never be another just like it again. Today is the point to which all your yesterdays have been leading since the hour of your birth. It is the point from which all your tomorrows will proceed until the hour of your death. If you were aware of how precious today is, you could hardly live through it. Unless you are aware of how precious it is, you can hardly be said to be living at all.”
Today is precious. This time–these next few months are precious. And we get to live it and be grateful for it, together.
Lead in: I am in my second year of seminary through the Iona Eastern Shore program, which allows our cohort to continue working while we are going to school.April 15-16, with a last minute switch, was a preaching weekend for me at Christ Church Easton. This is the text of the sermon I gave.
Churches/denominations that use the Revised Common Lectionary have prescribed readings for each day and Gospel readings for each Sunday. So we don’t get to pick what Gospel we preach on.
The Gospel reading for April 16 was John 20:19-31, which most people know for “Doubting Thomas,” the disciple who won’t believe that Jesus has been resurrected until he touches Jesus’s wounds for himself. We are all a bit like Thomas. The reading is where Jesus appears to the disciples for the first time after his death.
“Do Not Doubt, But Believe”
I’m a big fan of John’s Gospel. On the one hand, he’s a bit like the Rodney Dangerfield of the gospels—not enough respect to get his own lectionary year like the synoptic Gospels; on the other hand, every lectionary year is made better because we have John peppered throughout them.
For John, “believing” is a big deal. He uses the word “believe” 98 times in his Gospel, always as a verb, as something active and dynamic. He tells us at the end of today’s reading that these stories are written that we might believe that Jesus is the Messiah and through believing have life in his name.
Today’s reading is John’s version of Jesus giving the Holy Spirit to the disciples. Remember, John didn’t write Acts, that was Luke, so we don’t get the Pentecost telling of the story here.
There are scholars who say that John’s Gospel is the one most likely to have originated with an eyewitness account. We read the author describing himself as being there at the crucifixion and later, on the beach with Peter and the others. There are details in John that we don’t find in the others.
Let’s look at two stories of the giving of the Holy Spirit. At the beginning of Luke’s Gospel, he says that after investigating everything he wants to write an orderly account of all that went on, talking to everyone he can. Each Gospel sets out its witness to the good news of Jesus Christ, and I love Luke (he gives us the prodigal son, the Road to Emmaus, etc). But when I think humorously about the way stories get passed down over time, there is some part of me that thinks about Luke asking everyone for their recollection of Pentecost:
“And there was FIRE! Fire? Yeah, FIRE! It was intense! And then people were speaking in tongues, remember that? And people thought we were drunk, and Peter was like, noooo waaaayy, it’s only 9:00 in the morning…”
In Luke’s telling of the story in Acts, it is a public event, a spectacle.
In contrast, listen to John’s account:
“Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’”
Maybe it’s because I tend prefer being understated, but I love the simple, straightforward, intimate and understated way John gives us the Holy Spirit. No crowds, no fire, no speaking in tongues. Jesus breathed on them and gave them a new Spirit. A new life in Him. A life that has overcome death.
Does that sound familiar? This is from Genesis, Chapter 2, Verse 7:
“then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.”
I love that John sees what Jesus is doing and connects it back to the beginning (remember he starts his whole Gospel account with “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”) John wants to make sure we don’t miss what’s happening. This is new life, that comes through Jesus, which is giving us a direct connection to God.
I get excited about the Holy Spirit.
But let’s backtrack to where the disciples are in the reading and what’s going on.
Jesus has been arrested, crucified, and was buried in a tomb. The disciples scattered, afraid for their lives. Just before today’s reading, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and found the stone rolled away, she ran and got Peter and the one whom Jesus loved (who we think of as John, the author) and they went in and found the tomb empty. And then the men left and went home. All Peter and John saw was the empty tomb.
Mary Magdalene stuck around, talked to angels, then encountered Jesus, who told her to go and tell the disciples, which she did. But none of them have seen Jesus for themselves yet. They might dismiss her story as being unbelievable story, saying she was overly excited at finding the tomb empty—she could have been hallucinating.
Now, they were hiding out together in a locked room, hoping not to be found or found out. As writer and pastor Frederick Buechner describes it:
“They had bolted the door and were listening for the dreaded sound of footsteps on the stair when suddenly Jesus was among them. He stood in their midst—always in their midst, this man, turning up when they least expected him—and told them to breathe his breath, his holy breath and spirit, so that they could go out into the world again and perform his holy work.”
6th century mosaic in the Church of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna
Knowing that they are going to be scared out of their wits, Jesus’s first words to them are “Peace be with you.”
He reassures them. He shows them his hands and his side, so that they know it’s him and that this is real. And the disciples rejoiced. Of course they did. If there are scenes out of Scripture that you would want to be there for—this has to be one of them! This is massive. It’s transformative. It’s life changing. It’s death conquering.
Jesus gives the disciples what they need to believe. And then he gives them his Spirit and gives them work to do.
But Thomas isn’t there. The other disciples tell him what happened, but he isn’t having it. “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hand and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”
On the one hand, we can say, sure, everyone talks a big game when Jesus isn’t standing there, just you wait… But I think this is true to life. How many of us, when hearing friends tell us an unbelievable story, decide, “I’ll believe it when I see it.” Even if it comes from people we trust, we still want proof. Thomas wants the same experience the others had.
So what does Jesus do? He comes back. He shows up again, just for Thomas. He gives Thomas what he needs to believe. Jesus doesn’t scold him, he is there for him and tells Thomas, “Do not doubt, but believe.”
Notice, Thomas doesn’t get kicked out of the club for doubting. That is one of the wonderful aspects of this reading—there is room in our faith for doubt. It is okay to want to see for ourselves. It’s okay not to believe just because everyone else tells you to. Jesus works with Thomas.
And Thomas believes; seeing is believing as they say. Jesus then delivers the showstopper of lines, a line so important to faith: “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
That’s us. I don’t know about you—I haven’t encountered the bodily resurrected Jesus in the flesh. But I have come to believe. How?
Think of the work Jesus is asking the disciples to take on. To help people believe, when they haven’t seen him for themselves.
Here is Frederick Buechner again:
“The risen Christ is risen in his glory, but he is also Christ risen in the hearts of those, who although they have never touched the mark of the nails, have been themselves so touched by him, that they believe anyway. However faded and threadbare, what they have seen of him is at least enough to get their bearings by.”
Believe. What does that mean here? Is that an intellectual affirmation? Is it convincing ourselves and never doubting? Is this just a box we have to check off? I don’t think so.
For the disciples, their belief was foundational to the mission Jesus gave them. If they didn’t believe, what kind of witnesses would they be? If they don’t believe, why would anyone they meet want to believe?
Jesus’s life and love and good news are dependent on the disciples to continue to spread it out into the world. He was inviting them into an intimate, dynamic relationship with him.
And the same thing is true of us now. If people are going to come to believe in Jesus, it probably won’t be because they have had a bodily encounter with the resurrected Christ; it will be through the Holy Spirit, which is carried and passed on by the NEW body of Christ, the church, US.
The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, in his book, “Tokens of Trust: An Introduction to Christian Belief,” talks about a young Jewish woman named Etty Hillesum. She was in her 20s when the Germans occupied Holland. She watched her world turn into an utter nightmare. She was sent to a concentration camp at Westerbork before being shipped to the gas chambers at Auschwitz.
She wrote in her diary: “There must be someone to live through it all and bear witness to the fact that God lived, even in these times. And why should I not be that witness?”
Williams describes her attitude and commitment like this:
“She decided to occupy a certain place in the world, a place where others could somehow connect with God through her. She took responsibility for making God credible in the world. She took responsibility for God’s believability.”
What if THAT is what believing in God, believing in Jesus, means. That with and through our lives, we take responsibility for God’s believability. How many of us would say that we believe if that were the standard?
That’s what Jesus is asking of his disciples. But he doesn’t leave them on their own to do it, he doesn’t abandon them. He shows up. He brings them peace. He breathes his Holy Spirit into them.
The fact that we are gathered here in a church worshipping and loving Jesus, trying to understand his life and example, and bearing witness to the good news of his Resurrection says that the early disciples, with God’s help and the Holy Spirit, were up for the task.
I wonder: are we?
Let me give a brief witness. Over the past month, my daughter Ava has been in and out of A.I. DuPont Hospital, three times, first for surgery, then with multiple ambulance rides for seizures she couldn’t come out of. She’s home now and we’re hopeful she’ll be back in school this week and going to her senior prom next weekend. But epilepsy is challenging at times, and it’s been a rough, slow, frustrating go of things.
Not once going through it, have we, or I felt alone. Through so many text messages, phone calls, people checking in before or after classes, the school systems offering help, prayers, hugs, you name it–I have felt the Holy Spirit and God’s love at work through friends, through this congregation, through family, sometimes through strangers–volunteers at the Ronald McDonald House or, nurses, doctors, and people working at the Einstein Brother’s Bagels at the hospital, who can tell you are beyond tired this morning.
My experience is not unique. One of the things that touches my heart the most is to hear how people have shown up, how people have been there, how people have been LOVE in the lives of others. The way we love one another, even as Jesus loves us, can help make God believable for others.
We can see the Holy Spirit being God’s love in the world. We can be the Holy Spirit being God’s love in the world.
In the dark and confusing times that we are in the middle of in the world right now, can our belief, can our lives, can our love, be a witness for God’s believability in the world?
Yes, we can be that witness. Yes, God’s love, moving through us, through our belief, and our lives, can be credible in the world. That’s how the Holy Spirit works. No fire required.
Amen.
Our Iona Eastern Shore seminary class with professor, Fr. Dan Dunlap and guest presenter, Dr. Tom Long, one of the United States foremost preachers. That is how we started Saturday.
This week, I was asked to lead our Wednesday morning healing prayer service. It’s a small, wonderful, heartfelt and Spirit-led service, which is held every Wednesday at 10:00am. The Gospel reading for the morning was Matthew 22:34-40, which is Jesus answering the question, which is the greatest commandment. I’m including the reading below and then the homily I gave in response to it:
Matthew 22:34-40 NRSV
When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
“Let Love Become a Reality”
I love when people asked Jesus questions. Depending on who was asking, they didn’t always love his responses, or the questions he asked back to them.
But I think Jesus also had in mind the spirit in which the questions were asked. Thinking of John’s Gospel—both Nikodemus and the woman at the well were trying to understand. And Jesus encouraged them. Here and elsewhere, when the Pharisees, Sadducees, and lawyers asked questions, it was often to try to trip him up, to trick him into saying the wrong thing so they could discredit him or have him arrested.
Here we have an expert in the law asking him which commandment is the greatest?
So Jesus goes to Scripture, he pulls from Deuteronomy 6:5, part of the Shema, the creed of Judaism, for “Love the Lord your God,” and to Leviticus 19:18 for “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
On these two commandments, hang all the Law and the Prophets. He’s given a perfect legal answer. And he’s done something even more to confound the law expert.
Michael Green in his book “The Message of Matthew,” points out that “For people who, like this expert in the law, were strong on ethics and weak on relationships, this strongly relational teaching was a revealing mirror of the heart.”
Strong on ethics, weak on relationships. A mirror of the heart. When I think about a lot of people today—we are strong on ideas, maybe strong on convictions, but not so great on relationships. We want to label people as different from us and say therefore they are wrong. Our tendency is to distance ourselves rather than drawing closer, rather than trying to understand or to love.
When we think of God and our neighbors in terms of relationships, in terms of beings who we are called to love, we have to get off of our high horses. If we try to love God with everything we have, we also have to love his creation, and the people he created.
Green writes:
“If there is real love for God, there will inevitably be real love for neighbor; God’s overflowing love is infectious. The criterion of whether love for God is real is whether or not it is reflected in our relationships with others. And it will not do to say, as many do, ‘I don’t do any harm to anyone.’ That is not only negative, but it neglects the first and great commandment, to put God as number one in our lives. With God first and neighbor second, all else in the law is commentary.”
To make a go at loving, we have to have softer hearts, our hearts need to be renewed—we can’t just be following orders (the law).
How do we do this? It doesn’t happen all at once. It takes time.
Our friend and brother John Coleman points out that as a police officer, he responds differently to situations today than he did 25 years ago. He always did his job and responded according to law, but now his first response is based much more in love and understanding, then when he was newer at the job. He credits both God and time with working on him.
I can tell you from my own experience that I think and feel and respond differently now to things than I did five years ago. And that has been five years of studying Scripture, of prayer and worship, of spiritual friendships and encouragement. When we use the term Christian formation, we are hoping, working to be formed in a more Christ-like way.
I hope I continue to grow and learn and improve how I love God and love my neighbor.
Reflecting on this passage in Matthew, N.T. Wright (in his book “Matthew for Everyone”) says:
“The heart doesn’t seem to get renewed all in one go. Many, many bits of darkness and impurity still lurk in its depths, and sometimes take a lot of work, prayer, and counsel to dig out and replace with the love which we all agree should really be there.”
I’m thinking of Paul writing in Romans where he says, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing that I hate.” I think we all can relate to Paul’s dilemma sometimes.
Given the fact that we are standing here together at a healing service on Wednesday morning, I think we all know it is right and a good thing to love God and love our neighbor. We can agree both that that is what we are supposed to do and that it is what we are commanded to do.
But it has to be more than a command, it has to be more than instructions to follow.
Wright says:
Commandments “come into their own when they are seen not as orders to be obeyed in our own strength, but as invitations and promises to a new way of life in which, bit by bit, hatred and pride can be left behind and love can become a reality.”
There it is: an invitation, a promise to a new way of life where we leave behind hatred and pride and love becomes our reality. Let’s make that our prayer, let’s make that our guiding star.
If we go back to the scene, this encounter that Matthew gives us: Jesus is answering the question posed to him by a legal expert, and he gives a brilliant answer.
If we love God with all our heart, mind, and soul—we’re not going to put idols above him, we’re not going to have other gods before him, we’re not going to take his name in vain, and on down the list.
And if we truly love our neighbor as ourselves, that should take care of murder, stealing, coveting, adultery, bearing false witness.
Jesus gives us the Cliff Notes, the summary, the thing we can memorize or a cheat sheet we can put in our pockets and refer to when we need it—you know, for when we don’t have our Bibles with us or don’t have the time to look up the answers about the law.
But it’s so much more than that. It can be a basis for a new way of life, a better way of life.
The poet Pablo Neruda wrote in his love sonnets:
“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.”
What if we think about knowing and loving God that intimately. What if we have God’s love so much in our hearts and in our lives that we become that love when we think, when we feel, when we pray, and when we act. What if we know no other way of loving, than as God loves.
What if it didn’t matter that love was a commandment, because love was simply our reality.
I am rarely without a notebook and pen. It would be fair for me to wear a sign on my back that says, “Will stop to write.” Mostly because otherwise I will forget. I will stop my longboard if a compelling thought jumps into my mind. And I frequently sit along a shoreline, in the woods, on a bench or wherever to take notes.
When it comes to church, for the readings and the sermon, I often just have pen and paper at the ready.
These are notes and thoughts after sermons and discussion last weekend at Christ Church Easton.
Last weekend’s lectionary readings were Isaiah 11:1-10 (The Peaceful Kingdom) and Matthew 3:1-12 (The Proclamation of John the Baptist). They will both speak to you if you let them.
A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.
Isaiah 11:1-3
On our Sunday morning Zoom discussion, Fr. Bill Ortt unpacked the Isaiah reading.
Wisdom happens in the heart and soul. Understanding takes place in the mind.
Fr. Bill Ortt
That’s one to sit with. We comprehend things with our mind, but when something sinks into our soul, it changes us.
And as we got talking about how to take “the fear of the Lord,” Fr. Bill talked about the ocean–how it deserves reverence and respect; how it leaves us humbled and in awe when we think about its size and power.
My mind went to the stars. When I stare at a clear night sky and try to think about the distance and time that is between us and God’s artwork across the cosmos; if I see a shooting star or the recent eclipse, my sense of awe and wonder is beyond stoked.
In verses 6-10, Isaiah goes on to describe what the coming peaceful kingdom might be like:
The wolf shall live with the lamb; the leopard shall lie down with the kid; the calf and the lion will feed together, and a little child shall lead them. 7 The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. 8 The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den. 9 They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
This whole section is filled with hope for a people that need it. Maybe with what the world we live in feels like, looking forward with hope for a time to come might do us some good.
In Matthew’s Gospel, John the Baptist appears in the wilderness. He looks crazy, wearing camel-hair clothing and a leather belt, eating locusts and wild honey. He tells people to change their lives, to live differently.
The kind of wilderness they talk about in the Bible is not a place we want to be. Wilderness experiences are those times we feel alone, lost, stripped down, exhausted, confused.
We talked about the need for recognizing those times in the wilderness, those times of desperation.
“Sometimes we go into the wilderness, but sometimes the wilderness comes to us.”
That was a comment made in our Zoom discussion. There is a lot of truth to that. Being aware of the wilderness, even if we don’t feel that’s where we are, can be a saving grace.
Wilderness changes us. It can make us wiser. It can help us understand what other people are going through. It can wake up our compassion. When we come out of the wilderness renewed, we want to be people who help others who are struggling to make it through.
Towards the end of Fr. Bill’s sermon in the church on Sunday morning, he tied it together:
“We need to know what it means to be people who have been healed, forgiven, and renewed.”
Lead in: I am about to begin my second year in seminary through the Iona Eastern Shore program, which allows our cohort to continue working while we are in seminary. August 13-14 was a preaching weekend for me at Christ Church Easton. This is the text of the sermon I gave.
Churches/denominations that use the Revised Common Lectionary have prescribed readings for each day and Gospel readings for each Sunday. So we don’t get to pick what Gospel we preach on.
The Gospel reading for August 14 was Luke 12:49-56, which begins with Jesus saying “I have come to cast fire upon the earth and how I wish it were already ablaze!” and then gets more confusing from there.
For my last two preaching weekends, I have had demoniacs and fire-casting Jesus, both of which ask us to get our thinking caps on. The upside to getting the more obscure or confusing Gospel passages is that I generally have a lot of room to work with. We’re all kind of left scratching our heads and wondering what Jesus, and Luke, are talking about.
I think it is safe to say that the disciples were doing the same thing. I can imagine them looking back and forth to each other going, “I have no idea what he is talking about…”
And that is a theme throughout the Gospels: Jesus delivering a message that people didn’t understand or weren’t ready for. Or in some cases, that people didn’t want to hear.
One of the things we find Jesus talking about repeatedly is the way the world is…and the way the Kingdom of Heaven or the Kingdom of God is. And he wants to help us bring about the Kingdom of Heaven. Which is not how things were, and not how they in the world now. But they could be.
Jesus was not one for the status quo. He didn’t want things to just keep going the way they were. He came to be different and to show us how to be different, and how to live differently.
Thinking about Jesus’s strange message in today’s Gospel, I thought it might be helpful to point out a few things that Jesus IS NOT KNOWN TO HAVE SAID.
Here we go:
Jesus never said, “It’s all good.”
Jesus never said, “You do you.”
Jesus never said, “As long as you don’t hurt anyone.”
And Jesus never said, “Just keep doing what you’re doing.”
Jesus followed more in the sandals (not shoes) of John the Baptist, who said, “Repent.” Turn around. Stop doing what you are doing and live differently.
It’s important to put today’s message in context of Luke’s Gospel and the passages that are going on around it.
Over the last couple weeks, we’ve heard Father Charlie Barton distill the preceding Gospel messages to a few key phrases:
“Be rich toward God—don’t make your life about material things or treasures.”
And “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
“The simplest rule of thumb for each of us to ask, ‘Where do we spend our time and where do we spend our money?’ That’s where our treasure is, we can be sure. The focus of your time and money will tell you what your God is and what is important in your life. As others have wisely said, your checkbook and your calendar reveal your true belief system.”
Where we focus, what we value most, that will determine who we become and how we act in the world. So focus on God. Don’t focus on the things of this world, but on what Jesus has been telling us is more important. Things like caring for the poor and the sick, lifting each other up, loving God and our neighbor.
So when Jesus says, “I have come to cast fire upon the earth, and how I wish it were already ablaze”—he is talking about the way the world was, those who are storing up earthly treasures, those who are focused on power and not on love.
Burn down the old ways, Jesus is offering something new.
“Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.” And what happened to the people of Israel who decided to follow Jesus: division.
Even in and among households. If you are living in the old house and can’t picture what the new one looks like yet, you might not be ready to burn what you’ve got. Or maybe you think this guy is full of nonsense, you have no desire to do what he says or follow where he leads. Some followed, some didn’t. And households became divided.
Well, it’s a good thing we don’t have divided households now [raised eyebrow, pulls at collar] Glad they got that out of the way… or maybe what seemed like a strange, bombastic reading has some relevance.
How many people have family members or close friends who you aren’t speaking to or can’t talk to about religion or politics? How many have divided houses when it comes to big, important issues?
Maybe Jesus was on to something.
We all know the peace-and-love Jesus, and that’s the Jesus we hold dear. That’s the Jesus we want to study and to emulate. And that’s what we should do.
But we also need to remember that Jesus was not afraid to call people out.
Blessed are the peacemakers, absolutely. But the status quo then, AND NOW, isn’t peace. We have a lot of work to do.
Here at Christ Church, in our Bible studies we’ve used commentary by a bishop and theologian named N.T. Wright, and we have found him to be helpful for making sense of Scripture. In talking about this passage, Wright says that there may come a time when Christian teachers and leaders find people have become too cozy and comfortable.
He says that maybe churches might start to omit the Bible readings that talk about judgment, or warnings, or the demands of God’s holiness, because they ask something of us. And that maybe there are times when, like Jesus himself on this occasion, we need to wake people up with a crash. There are, after all, he says, plenty of warnings in the Bible about the dangers of going to sleep on the job.
Cruise control does not serve us well when we are heading in the wrong direction, or off a cliff.
“It’s all good” doesn’t work when it’s not all good for a lot of people, or when power and security are held closer to the heart than love and compassion.
Jesus talks to the crowds about how when you see clouds, you know it’s going to rain and when you see the south wind blowing, you know it’s going to get scorching hot.
Granted, weather forecasters don’t get much credit in our world today, but there are so many things we can know, we can predict, we can figure out. Look at all the technology around us and what we can do. On the simplest scale, I was blown away recently with the thought that I can send my family pictures while I am in Alaska and they get them instantaneously back here.
If we can do so many things, how come we can’t step up for those who can’t stand for themselves? How come we still store up earthly treasures but aren’t rich toward God? Let’s look where our treasure is, where our priorities are, and try to see where our collective heart is?
Jesus came to change the direction humanity was heading.
He came to show us a different way to be—one that isn’t easy, one that not everyone will get… a way that will cause division, and will call for the burning of some of our current, misdirected ways.
And he gave his life for that cause, and in today’s reading, he knew that that’s where he was heading.
Maybe it was fair to call out the crowds. And guess what?
We’re the crowds. Maybe it’s still fair to call us out.
N.T. Wright says:
“If the kingdom of God is to come on earth as it is in heaven, part of the prophetic role of the church is to understand the events of the earth and to seek to address them with the message of heaven.”
Maybe we need to do a better job of addressing the world with the message of heaven.
Maybe we should help burn down some of what’s broken for a new way, for a more loving way, for a more caring way.
Do you ever get to wondering? I seem to spend a lot of time that way, wondering. There is a conversation towards the end of Alice Walker’s novel “The Color Purple,” where Albert gets to wondering:
“You ast yourself one question, it lead to fifteen. I start to wonder why us need love. Why us suffer. Why us black. Why us men and women… It didn’t take long to realize I didn’t hardly know nothing. And that if you ast yourself why you black or a man or a woman or a bush it don’t mean nothing if you don’t ast why you here, period.”
Now we’re getting somewhere. Our lives are often defined by the questions we ask. So let’s ask the big ones, the juicy ones. And the right ones. So why does Albert think we’re here?
“I think us here to wonder, myself. To wonder. To ast. And that in wondering about the big things and asting about the big things, you learn about the little ones, almost by accident. But you never know nothing more about the big things than you start out with. The more I wonder, the more I love.”
Albert, via Alice Walker, “The Color Purple”
The more I wonder, the more I love. Yes to that, and so much more of it.
I wanted to read “The Color Purple” because of a quote; a quote I read and loved immediately; a quote that spoke directly to my soul and I have thought and used and felt so many times since, that I knew I needed to read the book where it came from.
And when I read it in context of the story, it was even better and deeper. Two of the main characters, Celie and Shug Avery are talking about God. And about how God is not an old white man in robes sitting on a throne. And how “God is inside you and inside everybody else. You come into the world with God. But only them that search for it inside find it. And sometimes it just manifest itself even if you not looking, or don’t know what you looking for.” Shug talking. And what a wonderful way to describe the Holy Spirit.
And Celie asks what God looks like, if not an old white man. And Shug says:
“Don’t look like nothing, she say. It’ ain’t a picture show. It ain’t something you can look at apart from anything else, including yourself. I believe that God is everything, say Shug. Everything that is or ever was or ever will be. And when you feel that, and be happy to feel that, you’ve found It.”
Shug says people “come to church to share God, not find God.” And I love that thought and thinking that sharing God is what church is for.
But none of those are the quote that made me want to read the book. Here’s the conversation:
Shug: God love everything you love–and a mess of stuff you don’t. But more than anything else, God love admiration. Celie: You saying God vain? Shug: Naw. Not vain, just wanting to share a good thing. I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.
And there it is. “I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.” That quote has been a part of me since I first read it years ago. It describes how I go through life. God made a flower, a field, a planet, a universe for us to wonder at. To ask about. And the more we wonder, the more we ask, the more we love.
And God made us for each other. He made each of us, to love each other and to love Him. And I don’t and won’t ever claim to speak for God, but it seems in the same way, it pisses Him off when we don’t love each other; when we spew hate and not kindness; when we divide, point fingers, and blame, instead of helping each other up, lifting each other’s spirits, using our gifts and His gifts to connect us to each other and to God.
Celie and Shug keep talking (Celie writing) –
What it do when it pissed off? I ast. Oh, it make something else. People think that pleasing God is all God care about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back. Yeah? I say. Yeah, she say. It always making little surprises and springing them on us when we least expect. You mean it want to be loved, just like the bible say. Yes, Celie, she say. Everything want to be loved. Us sing and dance, make faces and give flower bouquets, trying to be loved.
Everything wants to be loved. Everyone wants to be loved. God is giving us opportunities–what are we doing with them?
What if we try to notice the color purple? What if we try to see, to really see, and get to know each other? What if we wonder? What if we ask? What if the more we wonder, the more we love.
It’s hard to know what to say, so I can only speak from my life and experiences. And my life is one of privilege. I haven’t earned the life I live based on my own sweat and effort–I was given a gift of an upbringing and a social and economic status that I had nothing to do with. I try to live up to and into that gift, and I am grateful for it daily. I try to dream and picture what my daughters’ lives might look like, and I know they are only limited by themselves.
When I run through town, I am the maybe overly friendly guy who says good morning or hello to everyone I pass. And I have never gotten weird looks–usually a wave or smile back. People aren’t generally intimidated by or suspect of me at first encounter. Again, none of this has much of anything to do with anything I have done. If my skin were a different color, I’m not sure reactions would be the same.
In my teens and early 20’s, we were troublemakers often enough and had run-ins with police, but I never feared for my life. We live in a small community and over the years, I have come to know more and more police officers as friends, and I know them all to be amazing human beings who help people at an instant. Theirs are friendships I am blessed to have–getting to know the people and not just their jobs. And they have seen me for who I am.
Over the years my heart has hurt and my mind has been jarred by so many events on the news, or listening to others’ experiences of the world. And these stories rise up, make their rounds, and then life goes on. For those not directly affected. But each time, it is only a glimpse; only a flicker. Too many people can change the channel and not have to face something directly.
When people speak up and speak out, they are quickly silenced. Yes, you can protest, but not like that. And no, not like that. Yes, we believe in your right to be heard, but we are watching football right now. How about some other time, some other place, where I can still watch what I want and think how I want and not have to pay attention?
Right now, there is attention. We are not promised tomorrow, so right now is what we have. I can’t know or understand what it is to be black, but I can listen and I can stand.
I am a part of a faith community where I know that people of any race, culture, or religion are welcome, and I consider that a blessing. I have watched our rector befriend a Hindu man who was working in Easton and loved coming to our 5:00pm service. He was happy in his faith, he just loved the music and energy of the service, and it was a beautiful thing.
After the murder of George Floyd and the ensuing protests and riots, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Michael Curry, an African-American man, on Sunday published an op-ed in The Washington Post about choosing love over hate. He also talked about what the path of love might look like in these times:
“Love looks like all of us — people of every race and religion and national origin and political affiliation — standing up and saying “Enough! We can do better than this. We can be better than this.”
“What does love look like? I believe that is what Jesus of Nazareth taught us. It looks like the biblical Good Samaritan, an outsider who spends his time and money healing somebody he doesn’t know or even like.”
There is a way forward through this that looks like love. That looks like the self-sacrificial love that Jesus showed us, taught us, and modeled with his life. And it looks like coming together, in love.
In Bible studies over the past months, we have been studying Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, in which Paul is emphatic about the unity of the church. In his commentary on Chapter 2, scholar and former bishop N.T. Wright says:
“If our churches are still divided in any way along racial or cultural lines, (Paul) would say that our gospel, our very grasp of the meaning of Jesus’ death is called into question. How long will it be before those who claim to follow Jesus, not least those who claim also to love Paul’s thinking, come to terms with the demands he actually makes?”
The way forward in love right now is not about doctrine. If we look at Jesus, when he dealt with the hurting, the sick, the lonely, the disenfranchised–he saw them, he healed them, he loved them, he brought them into the fold. Where Jesus is love, Paul also calls that love into unity.
I don’t know exactly what that looks like yet. But I know I can’t really think or write about anything else with it so large on my heart and mind right now.
In talking about love and faith, Krista Tippett, author and the host of “On Being,” writes:
“Every time I let myself go deeper into the mess and mystery of human loving, I am hit over the head again by theology–an insistence that the love of God is so much fuller than we can usually imagine or take in… I keep pursuing faith, if for no other reason than because it is the place in our common life that keeps reminding me of the necessity of love–not the romantic love of poets, but the practical love of sacred texts–however fraught and imperfect our practice of it may ever and always be… love is not the starting point, but the goal. It is not something we are born knowing how to do, not something we fall into. It is something we spend our whole lives learning.”
That is a love I want to learn to do better. I want to spend my life learning and practicing it. Right now it feels like it starts with listening and with standing.
