love | Michael Valliant

The Miracle of Being Here and Going Home

I think about the movie “Shawshank Redemption” a good bit. In one of the most quotable conversations of the film, Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) says to Red (Morgan Freeman):

“It comes down to a simple choice, really. Get busy living or get busy dying.”

And that might be the simplest breakdown, though likely too simple, of the last section of John O’Donohue’s “Anam Cara.” The section is called, “Death: The Horizon is the Well.”

Death has a lot to do with life. In our lives, negativity and fear exile us from our own love and warmth, O’Donohue says, and to live life fully we need to transfigure or transform the negativity and fear “by turning it toward the light of your soul.”

“Eventually what you call the negative side of yourself can become the greatest force for renewal, creativity, and growth within you.”

O’Donohue says that part of transforming this negativity and fear happens by us letting go of it.

“Mystics have always recognized that to come deeper into the divine presence within, you need to practice detachment. When you begin to let go, it is amazing how enriched your life becomes. False things, which you have desperately held on to, move away very quickly from you. Then what is real, what you love deeply, and what really belongs to you comes deeper into you.”

Like the subject of aging, which was the previous section in “Anam Cara,” we don’t like to think or talk about death. It is an absolute fact of life, but it’s not a place we are comfortable going in conversation. We see death as separate from life, an ending, a horizon that we head towards. O’Donohue points out that it doesn’t really work that way. He quotes Hans Georg Gadamer, who says:

“A horizon is something toward which we journey, but it is also something that journeys along with us.”

Death is something that is always with us, not just at the end. And there are ways that we can get to know it.

“The meeting with your own death in the daily forms of failure, pathos, negativity, fear, or destructiveness are actually opportunities to transfigure your ego. These are invitations to move out of that productive, controlling way of being toward an art of being that allows openness and hospitality.”

What we go through in life can help us live more deeply. When we risk something and fail or fall and learn and get back up and move on, we can learn to release our fear and anxiety about it. This is also true of death.

“When you learn to let go of things, a greater generosity, openness, and breath comes into your life. Imagine this letting go multiplied a thousand times at the moment of your death. That release can bring you to a completely new divine belonging.”

Our life and our faith can help us to see death as a release into a completely new divine belonging. We can see examples of the natural life cycle, birth, life, death, rebirth–in the landscape, in nature, and all around us.

In our lives, we can see and feel and know that love goes on beyond death, love is bigger.

If we see death as going into nothingness, O’Donohue points out that “nothingness is the sister of possibility.” There needs to be space, nothingness, in order to create. In the creation story in Genesis, out of a formless void, God uses light and creates space for things to happen.

“Nothingness is the sister of possibility. It makes an urgent space for that which is new, surprising, and unexpected… This is a call from your soul, awakening your life to new possibilities. It is also a sign that your soul longs to transfigure the nothingness of your death into the fullness of a life eternal, which no death can ever touch… Death is not the end; it is a rebirth.”

This is all heady stuff. We are dealing with something we have no first-hand experience of, it is not something we can know. But it’s something we come to know in terms of losing people we love. During the six weeks that our study was together, we had multiple people lose dear and close family members as well as bringing in home hospice care to care for a parent. Death is ever present and devastating when it claims those we love.

Some folks in our group found this chapter helpful, some felt it was a subject that was too close to process. The thing about a study like this, or a Bible study, or any small group of people who you meet with and are close to–I think Ram Dass put it beautifully in saying, “We are all walking each other home.” We need to be there for each other in the tender and tough times of loss and pain.

We get a chance to be there for one another. But as for those who have died, O’Donohue says, why grieve them?

“We do not need to grieve for the dead. Why should we grieve for them? They are now in a place where there is no more shadow, darkness, loneliness, isolation, or pain. They are home. They are with God from whom they came. They have returned to the nest of their identity within the great circle of God. God is the greatest circle of all, the largest embrace in the universe, which holds visible and invisible, temporal, and eternal, as one.”

There is the good stuff. Those who have passed have gone home. They are contained in the circle of God. They have moved from our temporal world into the eternal.

And then O’Donohue does something cool. He talks about how he sees eternal time:

“In eternal time all is now; time is presence. I believe that is what eternal life means: it is a life where all that we seek–goodness, unity, beauty, truth, and love–are no longer distant from us but are now completely present with us.”

Completely present. Complete presence. There is something wonderful, whole, and beautiful to that. In the deepest sense, that is home.

What do we do with all that? How should that inform our lives? Well, if death is a release, a homecoming, a rebirth, then it isn’t something to be feared or ignored. Being at peace with what happens at the end of our lives, we should focus on how we live our lives.

We should transfigure the small deaths–the failures, the fears, the setbacks–and try to grow in presence with others in love, grace, hospitality. We should look for and try to experience eternal presence in our temporal lives (we go back to chronos and kairos again).

O’Donohue reminds us:

“It is a strange and magical fact to be here, walking around in a body, to have a whole world within you and a world at your fingertips outside you. It is an immense privilege, and it is incredible that humans manage to forget the miracle of being here.”

If I think back to Shawshank Redemption, and “get busy living or get busy dying,” I can think of living as taking advantage of the miracle of being here. And I can think of get busy dying is forgetting that privilege, of allowing fear and negativity to control how we live, which would be not living to the fullest.

So Andy Dufresne may still be on to something.

We closed our last class this past Monday with part of a prayer from “A New Zealand Prayer Book,” in their Daily Devotions, excerpting from the Monday prayer. Since it is Monday as I write, we will close here with it as well:

From “A New Zealand Prayer Book”

From Monday Evening

There is nothing in death or life,
in the realm of spirits or superhuman powers,
in the world as it is or the world as it shall be,
in the forces of the universe, in heights or depths –
nothing in all creation
which can separate us from the love of God
which is in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Love never comes to an end.

Holy One, holy and eternal,
awesome, exciting and delightful in your holiness;
make us pure in heart to see you;
make us merciful to receive your kindness,
and to share our love with all your human family;
then will your name be hallowed on earth as in heaven.

Support us, Lord, all the day long,
until the shadows lengthen, and the evening comes,
the busy world is hushed, the fever of life is over,
and our work done;
then Lord, in your mercy, give us safe lodging,
a holy rest and peace at the last.

Amen.

There are no good Hallmark cards for aging

When I picture my grandparents, they are later in years. The picture I have of them in my head is younger than how I guess they would picture themselves.

When I think of my parents, the images I have in my head are younger than they are now. Probably because I still see them in some ways like I did growing up. Though there is a continuity, they are still the same people.

I don’t know what age the girls will ultimately picture me as when they think about me. Since we see each other so often, likely at my current age for now.

I can still picture them at a variety of ages.

This week’s section in the “Anam Cara” study we have going at Christ Church Easton is “Aging: the Beauty of the Inner Harvest.” One of the things we decided in our discussions is that author John O’Donohue wouldn’t have been great at writing greeting cards for aging–his sentiments are either too sappy or too bleak. And there is a lot in this section that he glosses over–the pain both of aging and failing health and of watching those we love go through these things. But there is a lot to glean from O’Donohue as well.

As a society we don’t want to talk about aging. If anything, we want to deny it, put it off, sweep it under the rug. We buy products to prevent the effects of aging, we have procedures done, we aren’t comfortable with the journey of aging. But in some cultures, old age was/is revered and respected and elders were looked to for wisdom and insight.

O’Donohue points out that since we come from the earth and are made up of earth/clay, that like the earth, the rhythm of the seasons that are outside in nature, are also present within us. Our hearts and our lives move through seasons–winter, spring, summer, autumn–and each of these seasons have characteristics and benefits and drawbacks. It is helpful to be mindful of the seasons we go through in our lives.

This is what he says about autumn:

“When it is autumn in your life, the things that happened in the past, or the experiences that were sown in the clay of your heart, almost unknown to you, now yield their fruit. Autumntime in a person’s life can be a time of great gathering. It is a time for harvesting the fruits of your experience.”

We go through seasons throughout our life, not just one of each. I can think of several autumns in my life already, where I have been able to discern meaning after an experience that didn’t make sense at the time I was living it. But there is also a real way that as we get older, we are presented with opportunities for stillness, for reflection, for memory, and for meaning. These can be some of the upsides of aging.

O’Donohue tells us that old age is a time for integration–we have had the experiences, but may have missed the meaning. It is time to put it all together.

He talks about how our mistakes are precious and invaluable: “Frequently, in a journey of a soul, the most precious moments are the mistakes. They have brought you to a place that you would otherwise always have avoided.” And one part of the integration he talks about is being able to forgive ourselves for those mistakes.

And he suggests a wonderful quote from Blaise Pascal, who advised:

“In difficult times carry something beautiful in your heart.”

A few beautiful images I carry in my heart–always hoping to add more.

A concept that O’Donohue talks about, thankfully lived out by a number of people I am fortunate to know, that can come with old age is what he calls “second innocence:”

“Old age is a time of second innocence… The second innocence comes later in your life, when you have lived deeply. You know the bleakness of life, you know its incredible capacity to disappoint and sometimes destroy. Yet notwithstanding that realistic recognition of life’s negative potential, you still maintain an outlook that is wholesome and hopeful and bright.”

I am grateful daily for those I know who are living and sharing their second innocence.

O’Donohue points to old age and integration as a time for gathering wisdom. And he has a wonderful way of looking at wisdom:

“Wisdom is the art of balancing the known with the unknown, the suffering with the joy; it is a way of linking the whole of life together in a new and deeper unity.”

As we age, may we find ways of linking the whole of life together in a new and deeper unity.

I want to finish this reflection thinking about time. There are different ways of looking at and experiencing time. There is the time that passes–the chronology of things–minutes, days, years, workdays, appointments–and there are those experiences where time passes differently.

Fr. Bill Ortt uses the terms ‘chronos’ and ‘kairos’ to talk about different kinds of time. In looking for the best quick definitions of these two terms, Unsettled popped up with this:

“Chronos is the forward propelling time that we measure with clocks, on watches, and by the evolutionary phases of the moon. But time does not end there. The Greeks’ second word for time is “kairos” — lesser known but no less important. “Kairos” is what many philosophers and mystics would refer to as “deep time.” This is the time we’re talking about where the world seems to stop entirely. It can be measured in deep exhales, a shared laugh, or by a colorful sunset.”

That says it so well. I hope in our lives, each of us have experienced kairos, deep time, those times when regular time wasn’t the same, it wasn’t there. And I hope we continue to have those experiences.

O’Donohue talks about eternal time, and says that our soul lives in eternal time. I think you could make the case that kairos moments are when eternal time mixes with chronological time–our souls inform our lives and we have these profound, deep, and beautiful moments. I hope as we age, we become more aware of these moments.

Let’s talk more about eternal time. We hear a lot of a kind of stereotypical Christian thinking that says we live our lives in time, now, as they happen, and then when we die we become part of eternity. Right now we are in time, but then when we die we are not subject to time.

But if it’s eternity, it isn’t just then, it is also NOW. We are also living in eternity now. It’s all around us, it doesn’t just start later. It’s not simply a place for later, it’s how we relate to it.

Jesus was known to have used the terms “kingdom of Heaven” or “kingdom of God.” The Gospel reading for this past weekend was from Luke’s Gospel (Luke 13:10-18) and was about a woman who had a spirit that had crippled her for 18 years. Jesus healed her on the Sabbath and caught grief from those at the temple who said he wasn’t supposed to do things like that on the Sabbath. And after schooling the temple folks in why it was right to heal this woman on the sabbath, Jesus asks, “What is the kingdom of God like? And to what shall I compare it?”

On Saturday evening at Christ Church Easton, Rev. Susie Leight preached and led our worship service. It was her daughter’s last time singing in the contemporary choir before leaving for college for the fall, and the first service at the church since learning that Rev. Carol Callaghan, a dear friend and mentor of Susie’s had died the night before.

In Susie’s sermon, she pointed out how Jesus fused the world we are living in, the world the woman in the reading was living in and experiencing, with the kingdom of God, in the here and now.

These are some of Susie’s words, excerpts from her sermon:

Jesus sees this unnamed woman and he recognizes her…
There is no coming back tomorrow.
There is no delay.
His actions say: Mercy now, Compassion now, Grace now.
You are free, now.

What is the kingdom of God like?
The kingdom of God…
is like this right here.
It was 2000 years ago and it is right here, right now.
Look around you.
We don’t have to imagine it.

The unnamed woman is each of us sitting in this room.
Jesus calls us too and waits to give us a drink.

Maybe you know this and you’ve heard him calling your name, or maybe like the woman experienced,
it’s taking you a long time to find him
and healing seems to be far off.

Maybe your view is all dust and dirt right now,
and you are twisting and straining to find a way forward.

Or maybe, by the mercy, compassion and grace of God,
you are standing up straight and in the light.
Rejoicing at all the wonderful things
that Jesus is doing,
And you are fully hydrated.

Or perhaps you are somewhere in the middle.

God’s time is strange.
And I know it can feel like sometimes God is saying,
come back tomorrow (I’ve been there),
or often healing comes in ways
that we might never choose for ourselves (been there too).

But this startling work of God is often out of place,
out of time and often directed towards people
we might otherwise cast aside or condemn,
people we may not even see.

This startling work of God is meant for all,
even those synagogue leaders,
and right now I am imagining their red faces
as Jesus set them straight.
And I can hear Jesus declaring,
Mercy now, Compassion now, Grace now.

What is the kingdom of God like?
And to what should I compare it?
The Kingdom of God is like each of us sharing our water
with someone who is thirsty and dying for a drink.

Can you see it? Do you believe it? Will you receive it?
Will you share it?
Look around you.

Can you feel the fire?

Right here. Right now. Amen.

Eternal time. The kingdom of God. The same 2,000 years ago as now. Right now. Things like mercy, forgiveness, compassion. We experience them in our souls and in our lives. They change time. The healing of our souls, of our bodies; love for God and for one another moves us from chronos to kairos, to the eternal.

These acts of healing, kindness, compassion, right here, right now, bring us into the kingdom of God; help us glimpse eternity, from our souls into our lives.

John O’Donohue tells us that “wisdom is the art of balancing the known with the unknown, the suffering with the joy; it is a way of linking the whole of life together in a new and deeper unity.”

As we age, may we be wise. May we experience a new and deeper unity. May eternal time become more evident during our chronological lives. May the kingdom of God be ever more present and a part of our lives.

Right here. Right now.

Burn it down: we are called to live differently

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.”

I am a fan of a Franciscan Friar/Monk named Richard Rohr. In talking about Luke 12, he says:

“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.

For Jesus’s Way.

Amen.

Music for Our Souls

“When you are lonely, you become acutely conscious of your own separation. Solitude can be a homecoming to your own deepest belonging.”
John O’Donohue, “Anam Cara”

Loneliness and solitude are not the same. When we feel alone, we feel cut off, isolated, disconnected. Solitude gives us a chance to go beneath the surface noise of our lives and spend time getting to know our souls. Solitude can help us feel connected.

This week I was talking to a friend who is reading “Anam Cara” alongside our study at Christ Church Easton, though his schedule doesn’t allow him to make the classes. Our brief conversation meandered all over the place and as we went our separate ways I said that I hoped he was enjoying and getting something out of the book.

“You know what it gives me: music for my soul.”

Amen. May we all find music for our souls each day, and for those reading “Anam Cara,” may it add soul music to your days.

Section 3, “Solitude is Luminous,” is the halfway point in our study. John O’Donohue has contemplated the mystery of friendship (Section 1), and pointed out the infinity of our interiority and how our senses are our gateways to the world around us and to each other (Section 2). And now he shows us the need for us to go inside, to embrace solitude so that we can know our true selves, our gifts, what makes us who we are, so that we can be of benefit to others and to the world.

If all we do is follow the world and go wherever the figurative wind blows us, and we never get to know our passions, desires, gifts–our best selves, who God created us to be–what can we really offer anyone else in friendship?

“It is in the depths of your life that you will discover the invisible necessity that brought you here. When you begin to decipher this, your gift and giftedness come alive. Your heart quickens and the urgency of living rekindles your creativity.”

I am going to string a series of connected quotes here, one leading to another, because O’Donohue makes his points beautifully:

“When you acknowledge the integrity of your solitude and settle into its mystery, your relationships with others take on a new warmth, adventure, and wonder.”

Spending time in solitude is not some navel gazing, narcissistic indulgence, it actually helps us be better friends, partners, parents, better people.

“There is such an intimate connection between the way we look at things and what we actually discover. If you can learn to look at yourself and your life in a gentle, creative, and adventurous way, you will be eternally surprised at what you find.”

This is such an important thing to get across: how we look at things determines what we see. The lens, the eyes we use to look at the world shape/color what we see. And the same goes with how we look at ourselves. We are here in this life for the time that we have, treating ourselves gently and creatively and getting to know our souls and what we bring to the table is so important to what we make of our lives.

If you follow the idea that loving our neighbors as ourselves should be one of the top priorities of our lives, then it matters how we relate to ourselves. If we are miserable people who don’t know ourselves, where does that leave us with our neighbors?

O’Donohue goes on to warn us of the danger of “the unlived life.” He says, “We are sent into the world to live to the full everything that awakens within us and everything that comes toward us.”

If you come to “Anam Cara” with a lens to Scripture, you might hear echoes of the Gospel of John:

“The thief comes to kill and destroy, I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.”
John 10:10 (NIV)

If we live our lives to the full, we help others to do the same. That’s what God wants for us, for humanity, for all of Creation. That’s what we should be working towards, hoping for, searching for, praying for.

This week, Rev. Susie Leight shared the following photo and connected reflection from O’Donohue:

I arise today

In the name of Silence
Womb of the Word,
In the name of Stillness
Home of Belonging,
In the name of the Solitude
Of the Soul and the Earth.

I arise today

From Matins, by John O’Donohue

As we rise today, as we arise, may we look inside so that we can be the best versions of ourselves for those we encounter.

As we go through our days, may we find and appreciate music for our souls, and may we help provide and encourage soul music in others.

Through the noise and stress and worry of the world going on around us, may we make time to look deeper and see that “there is something beautiful, good, and eternal happening.”

Beginning today with the “Blessing of Solitude” with which O’Donohue closes his chapter, may we recognize, realize, and learn to see ourselves like this.

It is Strange to Be Here

John O’Donohue’s book, “Anam Cara,” begins: “It is strange to be here. The mystery never leaves you.”

And that’s maybe as true a statement as we will ever encounter. Take our consciousness, the fact that we are thinking, feeling beings inhabiting bodies, add science, add faith, add civilization, observations–when you sit and think about it, it is strange to be here. There is no way around it.

At Christ Church Easton, we’ve just begun a six-week study of “Anam Cara.” Rev. Susie Leight and I and 20+ curious and daring friends embarked this week on the first section of the book, “The Mystery of Friendship,” and a power-packed prologue to help set the tone.

O’Donohue was a poet, theologian, philosopher, and former Catholic Priest. When I read about him and his life, I am jealous, thinking–that’s it, that’s how I want to live my life. His way of bringing together Celtic spirituality and Christianity infuses life and sacredness into everything we encounter–God, each other, Creation and the landscape we are a part of–in ways that mainstream western Christianity could do well to remember and to look more closely at. Which is part of what we are doing.

“Anam Cara” is a Gaelic expression translatable as “soul friend.” And O’Donohue lets us know that what he hopes to do with his book is to explore friendship in a “lyrical-speculative” form. His writing is a meandering, meditative way through beauty, friendship, the senses, that can leave me stunned and spinning at times.

It is strange to be here. And given that, friendship, reaching out to an other, another person, is maybe the only sensible thing to do, to find other people to walk through life with.

O’Donohue says that:

“Human presence is a creative and turbulent sacrament, a visible sign of invisible grace. Nowhere is there such intimate and frightening access to the mysterium. Friendship is the sweet grace that liberates us to approach, recognize, and inhabit this adventure.”

Thinking of friendship as a grace, as sacramental, puts us in an open frame of mind. In this strange, lonely world putting ourselves out there, finding friendships with other people, is a courageous and necessary act.

As he wanders through the first section of the book, O’Donohue focuses on light.

“Light is the secret presence of the divine. It keeps life awake. Light is a nurturing presence, which calls forth warmth and color in nature. The soul awakens and lives in light. It helps us to glimpse the sacred depths within us. Once human beings began to search for a meaning to life, light became one of the most powerful metaphors to express the eternity and depth of life.”

This week, reflecting on some of our “Anam Cara” reading, Susie used some of O’Donohue’s thoughts on light and darkness in her own musings. She writes:

“Inspired by JOD’s words, I decided to wake up just before dawn a few mornings a week, to watch “how the darkness breaks” and observe how “light can coax the dark” while pondering & praying the question, “I wonder what this will be?”

Many changes are on the horizon (all very good & exciting, but there is anxiety too) & so rather than placing all sorts of expectations around what is next (which is my tendency) I have decided to sit, watch and listen, trying to separate the artificial from the real, what is of God and the Spirit, of the world or my own. the question seems large enough to hold what is and what may be… ‘just as darkness brings rest and release, so the dawn brings awakening and renewal. In our mediocrity and distraction, we forget each day that we are privileged to live in a wondrous universe. Each day, the dawn unveils the mystery of this universe…’

sometimes my camera does stuff without me trying, thought this was a cool shot. more to come.”

That is wonderful. When we read something challenging, we should let it challenge us, inspire us, help us think. If it doesn’t seep into our everyday lives, our hopes, our dreams, our friendships, then why are we studying it together and discussing it?

In “Anam Cara” we are talking about friendship, we are talking about light, and we are talking about love. Anytime we are talking about God, we should be talking about love. God is love, and love is what unites us in friendship. O’Donohue writes:

“Love is the nature of the soul. When we love and allow ourselves to be loved, we begin more and more to inhabit the kingdom of the eternal. Fear changes into courage, emptiness becomes plenitude, and distance becomes intimate.”

Love is what brings us together, what unites us. And coming together as friends to discuss, to be opened up by, a book about the nature of and need for friendship stands out as significant, in and of itself.

O’Donohue closes the section on “The Mystery of Friendship” with a friendship blessing, which is beautiful, profound, and inspiring. I read it out loud to close our first class. I would encourage you to read it out loud as you read it, and I hope that its words and sentiments bless you today and every day. The photo after it is one of Rev. Susie at her ordination to the deaconate earlier this year, along with our dear friend, the deacon Rev. Barbara Coleman. Soul friends in action.

“A Friendship Blessing”
By John O’Donohue

May you be blessed with good friends.
May you learn to be a good friend to yourself.
May you be able to journey to that place in your soul where there is great love, warmth, feeling, and forgiveness.
May this change you.
May it transfigure that which is negative, distant, or cold in you.
May you be brought in to the real passion, kinship, and affinity of belonging.
May you treasure your friends.
May you be good to them and may you be there for them;
may they bring you all the blessings, challenges, truth, and light that you need for your journey.
May you never be isolated.
May you always be in the gentle nest of belonging with your anam cara.

A Sermon in the Books

Prologue

Sunday morning, I walked up to the church about an hour before the 8:00am service. The evening before, I preached a sermon–still a very new-to-me experience–on Luke’s gospel story of Jesus healing a man possessed by demons.

Christ Church Easton has multiple worship services each weekend and Saturday is the most casual. People in the service, priest included, wear regular clothes. I was myself–talking in jeans and a Hawaiian-ish shirt and Vans. On Sundays, those serving are vested/robed. I was on my way inside to get robed up for three Sunday services.

The sunlight was dancing in the garden next to the church and I almost walked by it, feeling like a needed to be on task. And then I thought about being in the moment, for as many moments as we can, and I stopped and walked over. And perched on a flower was a dragonfly, who stayed, and didn’t fly away.

The dragonfly, the sunlight, and the flowers set the tone. Be in the moment.

A little background.

This past year, I became a first-year seminary student discerning a call to the priesthood. I’ve been a full-time church educator for the past five years. Our rector/pastor is giving a co-worker/fellow seminarian and I opportunities to preach, each of us being scheduled one weekend every other month. We have an incredible congregation/community, who are encouraging us.

So there’s that.

In the Episcopal Church, what the readings are each week comes from a common lectionary, which rotates over a three-year cycle. Generally speaking, an Episcopal service on a given weekend anywhere you go, will likely have the same Gospel reading. And if you are preaching, that is the Gospel you want to make sense of for folks in some way.

The reading for my preaching weekend was Luke 8:26-39, the story of Jesus healing the Gerasene demoniac. You know, a story that anyone would be keen to talk about 🙂

But as I thought about the reading during the week, an angle presented itself–talking about why a seemingly dated, archaic reading, which to many people might not seem to be at all relevant, actually matters here and now.

So I set out to look at demon possession through a modern lens. And here is what I came up with.

Personally, I retain more by reading than I do from listening. So the text is below. A friend was able to record the sermon portion of our 10:00am traditional music service, which you can watch here. Bear in mind that this is among the earliest sermons of someone not inclined to speak in front of gatherings of people.

An alternative to being demon possessed

Leading up to today’s reading, in Luke’s Gospel story, Jesus has been walking through cities and towns “proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God.”

The crowds are everywhere around him, so much so that when his mother and brothers come to see him, they can’t even get to him.

So Jesus does something that plenty of people on the Eastern Shore can relate to: he gets on a boat.

And he says, “Let’s go over to the other side of the lake.” Jesus falls asleep in the boat, and Luke gives us his account of the storm coming up, the disciples waking Jesus and Jesus calming the storm. The disciples are blown away that he can even command the wind and the waves.

So in our reading for today this boat ride takes them to the country of the Gerasenes. Jesus has gone over to the other side of the lake to get away from the crowds. And as soon as he steps on land, a man with demons meets him.

The funny thing, reading about the demon-possessed people in Scripture is that I think we dismiss these stories. Because we don’t talk like that anymore. Most of us aren’t worried about demons when we go into the grocery store or walk across town. So we say, okay, this story doesn’t apply to me. It’s not relevant.

Let’s think for a bit on this man and his demons. Here is a guy who is not in his right mind. His mind has been taken over by so many demons, they identify themselves as “Legion.” Here is a man on the opposite side of the lake from Galilee, meaning he is a gentile, not Jewish, which we further see by the fact that there are pigs around, which anyone Jewish wouldn’t have had. But what this area did have in common with Galilee, Jerusalem, the whole region, is that it had been taken over by Rome. And legions of Roman soldiers. So here is a man whose people had been conquered by foreign powers, and whose lives would have been affected accordingly. We might say that he was dealing with the spirit of the times.

Do we feel like the spirit of the times, of our times, might take over our minds sometimes? As Fr. Bill mentioned last week, do we feel like an unholy trinity of fear, leading to anger, leading to violence might carry us away with it sometimes?

Social media offers us more than a peek inside something like this. I have seen people who I know to be loving, caring, do anything for anyone people, say things on social media that certainly point to something taking over their minds and hearts—things full of blame and hate and anger and fear. Those are things, especially when they take over people who are otherwise loving and giving and caring, that lead us nowhere we want to go. And I get it, I feel those things too, I can be overcome with thoughts and feelings I don’t know where they came from and I wish they weren’t there.

We have dear friends and brothers and sisters at Christ Church who have shared their addiction stories and their journeys in recovery. Addiction is a disease that takes over someone, in a way that someone in Jesus’s time might well have described as demon possessed.

And when we look around the country at a new mass shooting each week, now including St. Stephens Episcopal Church in Alabama—it is not hard to make the case that we have people, here and now, who are not in their right minds; we are struggling and trying to understand and to help people through mental health crises, to help them know that they are loved and valued, at times when they are having trouble finding themselves.

We can see all around us that there are forces at work that have nothing to do with love, grace, forgiveness, or God.

All of this is to say, when we run into the demon possessed in Scripture, don’t be so quick to dismiss these stories—they still happen today, to us, just as much—with things taking over the way we think, feel, and act—which cause us to act in ways we normally wouldn’t.

And so in today’s reading, what do we see immediately with Jesus: these demons know him, and know that he has authority over them. They know he can get rid of them. Which he does and puts this man back into his right mind. And that is a great line, I think, when the people came out to see what happened, “they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind.”

And then there is one of the most curious, interesting lines. Seeing this guy back in his right mind, how did this make the people feel? “They were afraid.”

Let’s circle back to our times. If we know that love conquers all; if somewhere in our hearts, we know we could live differently, be more loving, but we would have to put down this armor, this way of seeing and being that we’ve become accustomed to… if we were asked to stop blaming people we disagree with, if we were asked to love our neighbor who lives differently or votes differently than we do: would we? If we are asked to love and forgive and do something about the state of the world around us—will we?

If we get so used to looking at the world through certain lenses, taking those lenses off, and trying on a different way of seeing, of living, can be scary. It requires us to change. It asks something of us.

So into this demon-possessed way of being, Jesus comes, and frees this man from the legion of things that cloud his heart and mind. Jesus, with power and authority, gives him, and gives us, an alternative way to be. A different way of seeing things and being in the world.

Jesus restores the man who was possessed by demons. And in the next chapter of Luke’s Gospel, we see Jesus calling the twelve together and giving them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases and sending them out.

We are called to be disciples of Jesus, right? I am going to speak for probably most of us, when I say I don’t know how well equipped I am for casting out demons and healing the sick. But there is some good news for those of us who don’t feel up to those tasks. And this season of Pentecost gives us a clue: He hasn’t left us alone to do this kind of work. He has sent us the Holy Spirit as our advocate, as our comforter, as our helper. We are never alone, especially when we are doing the work that God has given us to do.

A number of us have begun a three-week study of former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams’ book “Being Disciples.” And at the end of the first chapter, Williams has this profound thing to say about discipleship. He says:

“A disciple is, as we have seen, simply a learner; and this, ultimately, is what the disciple learns: how to be a place in the world where the act of God can come alive.”

We are learning how to be a place in the world where the act of God can come alive.

No pressure, right?

Let me tell you a quick story. Over the past month and a half, I have taken 20 minutes each morning for centering prayer. What that is, at base, is breathing, clearing my mind, and being in the presence of God. One of the ways I try to keep that focus is when I breath in, I think about breathing in God’s love. And that makes me smile. And when I breathe out, I think about filtering God’s love through me, and breathing out compassion, empathy, and love for others. And if I sit with that for a minute, and wrap my mind around spending more time breathing love into the world, than I do fear, or hate, or anger, that should certainly change how I act, how I see other people, and how I treat others.

This is maybe the exact opposite of demon possession. Instead of taking in all these things of the world that keep us from God, I try to take in, to dwell on, to feel God’s love and grace.

I’m not saying that centering prayer is the answer to evil in the world. But let’s ask ourselves, what are those things we can do to help us focus on God, on love, on healing and forgiveness, rather than the different forces at work that want to keep us from the power of God’s love.

Rowan Williams has a few suggestions as to things that can help. He says: 1) attending to Scripture, following the Gospels so we can better understand this life we are called to live. 2) He says coming together to worship, to baptize, to celebrate Communion together and to welcome others to do the same. 3) And he says looking to the lives of others around us that help us to have faith. We need each other for that, to help us focus on God.

And so what if all of us who think of ourselves as Christians spent even a little time each day trying to focus on God’s gifts for us; on God’s grace and his love, in whatever ways we find most nourishing.

And then what if, by our breath, by our thoughts, by our actions, we tried to put more love into the world—taking in God’s love for us—and putting that love, in our own special and unique ways, into our community, into our world. Would that make a difference? And if it would, are we willing to put the time in, to put the work in, to do it?

We are called to be those people. We are called to be that community. We are called to further this work.

Today’s story of a demon-possessed man should resonate with us in today’s world, if we use the language of our time. And Jesus having the power to heal, to drive out the demons that tormented this man, and many others, is still as true today as it was then.

The world we live in is a frightening and heart-breaking place too much of the time. Helping to set it right, helping to be places where the acts of God can happen in the world is the work we have been given to do.

But we don’t do it alone. We have each other, and we have the Holy Spirit. And that is enough.

Amen.

Oh, also. It helps to wear your preaching Vans.

Morning Snapshots

Eastern Bluebirds are flying in front of and behind me as I skate onto the Oxford Conservation Park loop. I’ve had their shade of blue and orange in my head since I first saw a bluebird years ago and they still quicken my heart.

It is a Saturday with nothing on the morning calendar and temperatures looking to move into the mid-90s. This early though, there is a breeze and it’s perfect sitting outside weather.

Books frequently open my mind and expand my worldview. The path I am walking (or skating) I owe in part to a Trappist monk named Thomas Merton. Recently I’ve encountered another Trappist monk Thomas, Thomas Keating.

“Grace is a participation in the Divine nature, it’s not just something added on like an overcoat. It’s a radical transformation of the whole of human nature so that it can be a divine human being, meaning it can exercise freedom, compassion, love…”
Fr. Thomas Keating

From reading his books to watching the documentary, “A Rising Tide of Silence,” Keating and a former student of his, an Episcopal priest named Cynthia Bourgeault, have pointed me to the practice of centering prayer. I’ve made this type of silent prayer part of my mornings for the past month or so, and I hope to keep it in my daily routine.

This morning, I want to go outside, to make this time under my sitting tree. After my bluebird greeting, I have a deer run across the cemetery loop about 10 feet in front of me.

I’m traveling light, just a notebook, pen, and binoculars, and I sit on my skateboard on the shoreline looking out onto the cove.

For centering prayer, they recommend picking a word that can bring you back to the moment, Bourgeault describes the word as being like windshield wipers to wipe away the thoughts that always jump in the way for attention. The word I have been using is “rest.” In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28). Psalm 37:7 says “Rest in the Lord,” which can also be translated as “Be still in the Lord,” meaning be at peace. I find that to be the right approach and mindset for me.

Sitting by the water, I breathe and close my eyes. A breeze is across my skin and in my ears like a conversation and listening, there is a constant concert of songbird voices. I can hear a fish jump in front of me to the left, and I open my eyes to see the rings it left–a cardinal flies low over the water, like it’s his cue to go on. The ascending sun reflects off the water to the right.

I am new to centering prayer, but even with my limited experience, I find that when I let my passing thoughts go, it gives me an opportunity to be closer to God. Keating’s quote that grace is for us a chance to participate in the work God is doing in the world and the love He has for us and for creation. And I can feel that this morning. And sitting alongside a cemetery, where my grandparents, family, and friends are buried, remembering and feeling them, I feel re-connected over and through time, like we are all sharing these remarkable moments.

Keating writes:

“When the presence of God emerges from our inmost being into our faculties, whether we walk down the street or drink a cup of soup, divine life is pouring into the world.”

For most of my life, this kind of quiet prayer time, these morning moments and experiences have been solo endeavors, an introvert’s delight. And I still need plenty of those. But I also find that I can be around people and still be at peace; I can even delight in what other people are doing. Like Keating says, walking down the street, or having a cup of coffee (too early for soup), I want to take those moments with me into the world, to be a part of that divine life pouring into the world . And I am not ready for the next phase of the day to start, so I head to the Oxford Park.

I stop through Oxford Social, the cafe right next to the park, for the first time. A birding friend from my Oxford Community Center days gets in line and we talk birds a bit, and about Third Haven Quaker Meeting House, and about seminary. I walk down to a bench by the river and sit with coffee, the view, conversations off to my right, kids playing on the swings to my left, and a young boy running with his dog.

I pick up John O’Donohue‘s book “Anam Cara,” a favorite book, which Rev. Susie Leight and I will be leading a book study of starting in July, and I come across this:

“Love is absolutely vital for a human life. For love alone can awaken what is divine with in you. In love, you grow and come to your self. When you learn to love and to let yourself be loved, you come home to the hearth of your own spirit… Love begins with paying attention to others, with an act of gracious self-forgetting. This is the condition in which we grow.”
John O’Donohue, “Anam Cara”

And it’s this openness, this paying attention to others, this self-forgetting, letting go of ourselves, letting go of myself, where I seem to be spending a lot of my time of late. O’Donohue continues:

“Once the soul awakens, the search begins and you can never go back. From then on, you inflamed with a special longing that will never again let you linger in the lowlands of complacency and partial fulfillment. The eternal makes you urgent.”

Maybe this has been a slow build over the last 50 years. Maybe all those different moments I can look back on and feel sitting here now, have all been hints and flickers, breadcrumbs or candles of encouragement. And each epiphany adds to a longing, pushes further into the search. Maybe with the state of the world, the worry, the suffering, the confusion, the time is coming that we need to look at differently and help others do the same; we need to live differently and help others do the same.

Maybe when we have moments of sitting quietly and emptying ourselves out, what’s there that we connect to, is Love (God is Love). And what could be more important to share with each other?

Sediment, Tents, Hot Dogs and the Holy Spirit

Shake a snow globe full of sediment and you’ll have to wait a while for the sediment to settle. Only then can you see through it. Clarity comes from letting the sediment settle. Now think of the sediment as all the demands and distractions in our daily lives–and there is always something or someone shaking our snow globes.

The weekend retreat during The Alpha Course is designed to help us settle, unwind, and unplug so we can plug into something that will recharge us. It’s a time to connect with the Holy Spirit and with each other.

Five years to the weekend after Christ Church Easton‘s first Alpha retreat, we took a group of more than 20 people to Pecometh’s Riverside Retreat Center outside Centreville, MD, for a weekend to reconnect. The weather was in the 70s during the days, the night skies were starry and clear, and the waterfront campus is full of trails, woods, and structures to get you dialed-in to creation.

Saturday morning, we had a group gathered on benches outside by the river for morning prayer. We read from Padraig O’Tuama‘s “Daily Prayers,” in which we pray, in part:

We resolve to live life in its fullness:
We will welcome the people who’ll be a part of this day.
We will greet God in the ordinary and hidden moments.
We will live the life we are living.

We set our intention to be present, open, and to appreciate one another and our lives.

Weekends like this are about moments; they are about relationships; they are about laughter and tears from being overfilled; they are made up of sharing meals, of taking hikes and walks or going skateboarding; they are built around small group discussions and big questions and shared experiences and being vulnerable.

The Alpha Weekend five years ago is the first time I reflected on advice that St. Paul gave in his letter to the Romans where he said:

“Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
Romans 12:2 (NIV)

In a world that wants us to conform, we are encouraged to live differently. In a series of videos over the weekend, we meet Jackie Pullinger, a missionary who went from England to Hong Kong more than 50 years ago, who has worked to help prostitutes, gang members, and the poor. She has done amazing work and points out that what we need to spread God’s love in the world are “soft hearts and hard feet.” And she says that maybe the only way our hearts soften is by being broken.

An Alpha Weekend is about relationships and downtime and making memories, including the debut of a non-existent band called “Skater Dads.” It’s skipping stones at sunset and exploring the campus for the camp’s famed outdoor chapel.

The Alpha Weekend is about sitting around a campfire singing songs, roasting marshmallows and hot dogs and being awestruck when someone reaches their hand into the fire to successfully rescue a fallen hot dog and comes out unburned (don’t try this at home or around a youth director) ; it’s about feeling seen simply by someone noticing that you are almost done cooking your hot dog and being asking if you want a bun.

It’s what happens when a group of people gather in a beautiful place for the sacred purpose of being together, worshipping God, and being open to the Holy Spirit.

Sunday morning, the ending of such a powerful and peaceful weekend, the big feelings were about not wanting the weekend to end. A conversation made me think about the transfiguration of Jesus on the mountaintop, this absolutely incredible experience of Jesus, Elijah, and Moses, and Peter’s immediate response is to build tents–“Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings” (Luke 9:33)–he wants to stay in that moment, he wants to keep it going, just like each of us wanted the weekend to keep going. But Jesus knew differently. He knew that as incredible as those experiences are, it is not about building tents and trying to hold the moment–it is about carrying the moment back into the real world, because we have work to do. We have to spread that Holy Spirit experience. I mentioned all this to our collected groups. Which gave Rev. Susie Leight an idea.

Susie expounded on the theme of leaving, going back to the world, by opening our Sunday morning worship service with a blessing/prayer from Jan Richardson:

Dazzling

A Blessing for Transfiguration Sunday

“Believe me, I know how tempting it is to remain inside this blessing, to linger where everything is dazzling and clear. We could build walls around this blessing, put a roof over it. We could bring in a table, chairs, have the most amazing meals. We could make a home. We could stay. But this blessing is built for leaving. This blessing is made for coming down the mountain. This blessing wants to be in motion, to travel with you as you return to level ground. It will seem strange how quiet this blessing becomes when it returns to earth. It is not shy. It is not afraid. It simply knows how to bide its time, to watch and wait, to discern and pray until the moment comes when it will reveal everything it knows, when it will shine forth with all it has seen, when it will dazzle with the unforgettable light you have carried all this way.”

This weekend was a blessing made for coming down the mountain, back into the world; it was an experience, it was moments, it was deepened relationships. It is a blessing for us to share with those we meet, with those who are a part of our days.

There’s Nothing As Whole As a Broken Heart

“There’s nothing as whole as a broken heart.” I read that sentence and just stopped. And sat. And let it wash over me. We have two different small groups reading Rachel Held Evans’ book “Wholehearted Faith,” during Lent at Christ Church Easton.

In a chapter titled “Where Stone Becomes Flesh,” she quotes Ezekiel:

“A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel 36:26)

If there is anything we need in the world today, it’s to be able to cast off our hard hearts and start working and living with hearts of flesh.

Evans explains it further. She quotes Rabbi Ariel Burger from an interview.

“There’s a Hasidic teaching, from Rebbe Nachman of Breslow: ‘There’s nothing as whole as a broken heart… In these traditions you cultivate a broken heart, which is very different from depression or sadness. It’s the kind of vulnerability, openness, and acute sensitivity to your own suffering and the suffering of others that becomes an opportunity for connection.”

On Thursday night discussing the chapter, someone read this passage, and then added, “I’ve got a broken heart. And if through that, I could help someone else…”

And that’s it. Right there. When we take what we’ve been through, the hurt, the pain, the suffering, and see it and use it and offer it as a way to help others, then love wins.

That’s part of what we are here for. That’s the work that God has given us to do. To love one another.

Amen.

Connected to God’s Family

The evening before Christmas Eve, two of us were asked by our Rector if we’d be willing to pinch-hit and lead prayer services and give short sermons on December 25 and 26. The 26th was my day. The Gospel reading for the day, which I needed to discuss was John 1:1-18, “In the beginning was the Word.” Not the one I would have picked for a first-ever sermon, but it was the right one. Part of a continually unfolding story.

An 11th hour, first sermon seems like something worth documenting and sharing, so here it is, with a few edits. And a quick note explaining the top photo: A few years back in a class led by Fr. Bill Ortt, he drew two circles–one with arrows all pointing inward, one with arrows all pointing out. And he asked, which circle looks like love?” The one with the arrows pointing out, away from ourselves to others. And (now) Rev. Barbara Coleman put her hands on her head, fingers out, looking like the circle showing apostolic, outgoing love. And her “apostolic antlers” have been a symbol/sign with a number of us since. Her husband John, pictured on the right, led prayers of the people at the end of the service, and Barbara told him he needed to get a picture of the two of us giving the sign. So there it is 🙂

“Connected to God’s Family”
December 26, 2021

Being called to do something is to be invited. It’s always an invitation. Studying Scripture, we learn that there is actually a right answer to being called—“Here I am, Lord.” When you try to make a point to answer, “Here I am,” you find yourself in some situations you aren’t prepared for. Like being asked the night before Christmas Eve services if you would lead morning prayer the day after Christmas. And have something to say about the prologue to John’s Gospel.

And here we are.

So what can we say about the opening of John’s Gospel?

If someone was to make a nativity play out of John’s introduction to the good news, it would not be a hit with families and kids. There are no shepherds, no wise men, no manger. It’s just words. But John is up to something at the beginning of his story that might just give us the most hope in the end.

Each of the four Gospel writers does something different with how they begin their stories.

Matthew gives us Jesus’s family tree, wise men traveling from afar, and does his best to make sure his readers know that this is the guy who is fulfilling prophecy; he is the King of Kings.

Mark skips any kind of birth narrative and gets straight to the story. I like to think of Mark’s storytelling approach as pulling up to the curb, opening the car door and saying, “Get in… Immediately!”

Luke is where we get shepherds and some of Mary’s joyful experience as an expectant mother, and Jesus’s connection to John the Baptist.

John goes back. Way back. To the Beginning. And he does it with incredible poetry. When I first sat down to really study the Gospels, John’s prologue gave me goosebumps. I am a sucker for language, but there is more.

The beginning John takes us back to is Genesis.

When you read Matthew, his genealogy for Jesus goes back to Abraham. Luke traces Jesus’s family tree back to Adam. One of the things John is telling us is that Jesus goes back even further—to the very beginning.

There is a Franciscan friar or monk named Richard Rohr who has written about the “Cosmic Christ.” He points out that Christ is eternal, that he has always been here. And that the incarnational Jesus, when he became human and lived with us in bodily form, happened at a particular time and place. But Christ as part of the Trinity is so much bigger than we can comprehend. And that’s where John takes us.

In our Bible studies, we have found NT Wright to be a wonderful guide for making sense of Scripture. He says this about John:

“that’s the theme of this gospel: if you want to know who the true God is, look long and hard at Jesus… The rest of the passage clusters around this central statement. The one we know as Jesus is identical, it seems, with the Word who was there from the very start, the Word through whom all things were made, the one who contained and contains life and light.”

That’s the goosebumps part of John for me. When I read him, I get that sense of awe, that sense of Jesus as the Word, Jesus as God. And that he has given us that same gift, of knowing God through him.

Do you ever get that sense of being connected to something so much bigger than yourself? There are times when I am watching a sunrise or a sunset; or it could be reading poetry—it actually happens a good bit here at Christ Church, listening to music during a worship service, or finding myself trying to scribble down notes about something Fr. Bill or Fr. Charlie mentions in a sermon. I have a sense, something I know but can’t explain, that I am, that we all are connected to the Divine.

I woke up today and learned that Archbishop Desmond Tutu died yesterday at the age of 90. I have a good friend and mentor that spent part of a semester at sea with Archbishop Tutu and he has such wonderful stories to share from that experience. Desmond Tutu is one of those people who I point to as being a huge inspiration and who has made me look and listen to what a calling in ministry might be. This summer and fall we had an outdoor evening prayer service on Thursdays, one of which fell on Archbishop Tutu’s 90^th birthday and we included several of his prayers to honor him.

Tutu spoke to this exact thing, that transcendent feeling of connecting to God in different moments of our lives, if we pay attention. He said:

“We were made to enjoy music, to enjoy beautiful sunsets, to enjoy looking at the billows of the sea and to be thrilled with a rose that is bedecked with dew… Human beings are actually created for the transcendent, for the sublime, for the beautiful, for the truthful… and all of us are given the task of trying to make this world a little more hospitable to these beautiful things.”

These things, these experiences are reminders that we are wired to feel something more than just going through the motions of daily life.

I’ve talked recently about crying at Christ Church—and about how I have cried more in the past five years than maybe any other time. That it’s the kind of crying that comes from your heart being too full, so that something has to come welling up and out. And that welling up comes from being connected—both to God and to each other. That’s part of the package deal about loving God and loving your neighbor.

And that connection is what caring about each other looks like. That caring is love. And that love, that’s what was there in the beginning, that creative force that built and sustains the universe and that built and sustains us.

And that’s what John’s about. And that’s what God’s about. And that’s what we are supposed to be about.

I’ve seen that connecting and caring on full display at this church. We have all seen it in Bruce Richards and the last 18 years—it’s what the (pastoral care) Stephen Ministry is all about. That kind of caring, that kind of loving is what we are here on this earth to do. That’s the gift we are given of this life, the one that goes back to the beginning, goes back to the Word, goes back to Christ.

But it’s not meant to stop inside these walls. It’s meant to go out, apostolically. It’s the work that God has given us to do. And it feels right to end this morning’s message with words from Desmond Tutu to that effect:

“We are made for goodness. We are made for love. We are made for friendliness. We are made for togetherness. We are made for all of the beautiful things that you and I know. We are made to tell the world that there are no outsiders. All are welcome: black, white, red, yellow, rich, poor, educated, not educated, male, female, gay, straight, all, all, all. We all belong to this family, this human family, God’s family.”

Amen.