Homily for Sunday, July 25th, 2010
The Lessons:
Psalm 85
Hosea 1:2-10
Colossians 2:6-15
Luke 11:1-13
Prayer is a very personal thing. If you ask a roomful of Christians how they pray, you will probably get a roomful of different answers--or, maybe, a few bewildered shrugs. Some might say prayer is an intentional effort to reach out to God. The 11th Step of AA's 12 Steps says, in part, "We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God..." When we try to make contact with God, we assume God will always be there to hear and answer us. Episcopal priest and writer Martin Smith describes prayer as our ongoing conversation with God, suggesting that God's end of the dialogue is always open to us.
Dame Julian of Norwich, 11th century mystic, envisioned God in this way: "Completely relaxed and courteous, he was himself the happiness and peace of his dear friends, his beautiful face, radiating measureless love, like a marvelous symphony; and it was that wonderful face, shining with the beauty of God, that filled that heavenly place with joy and light." Who wouldn't want to have a conversation with such a relaxed and courteous, friendly deity? I wonder why prayer is not easy for many of us.
Think back to childhood and your earliest experience of prayer. Was it your mother or your father who first taught you how to pray? Did you learn to kneel by your bed and say a prayer before you were tucked under the covers? That's the way my mother taught me to pray, and she knelt beside me. The prayer I learned was the one that goes like this: "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep; if I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take." I bet a lot of us learned this same prayer as children, although to me it now seems like a grim and scary prayer to teach a child. [No wonder my childhood fear was that radioactive green slime hid under my bed!]
Of course, it is necessary to spend some time explaining prayer to children. I was dismayed when my then four-year old son asked why people were "reading their plates" during grace. I hadn't made it clear to him that prayer before meals is the way we express our gratitude to God for our blessings. It is said that gratitude makes us joyful, and since children abound in joy, they understand intuitively what it means to be blessed.
I still have a book of prayers for children that I was given as a small child, and I look forward to sharing the book with my grandchildren. Why is it that children take to prayer so easily once it is explained to them? The answer to that question is suggested by the Lord's injunction: "Unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." Children accept God with a very uncomplicated and simple faith. As a small child, I didn't have any doubt that God was nearby and would hear my prayer. God seemed not unlike a loving grandparent.
In today's gospel lesson from Luke, the very grown-up disciples ask Jesus for an explanation of how he prays. He responds by teaching them to pray as a child might pray, with trust, simplicity, and candor.
First, he instructs them to speak in the most intimate of terms to God, to invoke God as "Abba," as Daddy, to experience the closeness of God but not to forget the holiness. The phrase "hallowed be thy name" suggests that a balance should be struck between the tenderness of love and the awe of reverence. God is approachable because we are his children, but God is God and he answers our prayers with power.
Next, Jesus tells the apostles to pray, "Your kingdom come." The task for the apostles, as it is for all of us who follow their path as disciples of Christ, is to do everything we can to bring the Lord's kingdom to the place and time we inhabit. How do we do that? When everything we do is motivated by love, God's kingdom will have arrived, because God is love. Even when it is hard to imagine the entire Earth exemplifying love and becoming the kingdom, surely we can work to make it happen in our own homes.
Next, we are to say, "Give us each day our daily bread." We acknowledge the source of all of our blessings, the source of our very lives. That humble acknowledgement is the wellspring of gratitude, the origin of child-like joy in God. The same God we encounter when we look up at a sky filled with stars on a cloudless night or gaze out to sea from a windswept shore is the God who provides us with our daily bread.
Luke's version of the next part of the Lord's prayer differs significantly from the more familiar version in Matthew. According to Luke, the Lord instructed the apostles to pray, "And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us." Matthew uses the word trespass where Luke uses sin, and the Greek word for trespass is ophelema, meaning "that which is owed, or an offense requiring reparation." The Greek word for sin, as in Luke's version, is hamartia, which means "missing the mark," or not living up to the standard for moral behavior set by God. Matthew's "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us" has sometimes led to debate about the meaning of forgiveness. Are we forgiven by God only to the extent to which we forgive others? When can we be sure our forgiveness is sufficient enough? When we forgive others, are we sincere, or do we forgive only on a kind of quid pro quo basis? Luke's version does away with this exchange system of forgiveness. Luke seems to say that the grace we experience when we are forgiven by God causes us to forgive others: "And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us." Mercy and love come naturally to us when we know ourselves to be steeped in the mercy and love of God.
Today's psalm reminds me of a perfect example of Luke's (and the Lord's) meaning about forgiveness, mercy, and love. Psalm 85 is one of my favorites, and key verses from it are quoted in a wonderful film called Babette's Feast. (Some of you may have seen it and chances are you like it as much as I do. ) Babette is a French woman who arrives mysteriously in a small village on the coast of Norway. The year is 1871, and Babette brings a letter of introduction to a pair of spinster sisters. The letter is from an old friend of one of the sisters, who asks them to take in Babette, a political refugee, and suggests that she would be a good housekeeper for them. The sisters are poor, but they are kind souls, and they agree to have Babette live with them, though they will be unable to pay her much of anything. In fact, the sisters live a very austere life as they try to keep alive the Christian sect founded by their father, who had been a pastor in the village and is now long dead. A verse from Psalm 85 had been the credo of their father's faith, and it is posted on the wall of the sisters' house: "Mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other."
After fourteen years of living with the sisters and brightening their lives in simple ways, Babette learns that her lottery ticket has paid off. An old friend in Paris has been renewing it for her each year, and she gets a letter saying she has won 10,000 francs. When the sisters find out, they are glad for her, knowing she will now be able to return home to Paris, although they are also dismayed at the thought of her leaving. What will Babette decide to do?
Well, what she chooses to do is to bring the kingdom to the poor people of the fishing village, the spinster sisters and their friends. Out of her gratitude for the love and kindness the sisters showed her in giving her safe refuge, she more than amply repays her debt to them, as the Lord's prayer suggests. She spends every bit of the 10,000 francs to purchase all of the ingredients and delicacies she will need to prepare for her benefactors a magnificent French feast, intended as a dinner to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the pastor, their father's, birth. You see, it turns out that Babette had been a most famous chef in Paris.
As the preparations for the meal become more and more elaborate, the sisters, who like all of their neighbors are accustomed to eating fish stew and gruel, are alarmed by the possibilities being presented to them. Among themselves, they resort to the last part of the Lord's prayer, "Do not bring us to the time of trial." Although they know she means well, the sisters fear Babette will tempt them and their guests to indulge sinful appetites. What happens as the evening of the feast arrives and they eat the meal Babette has prepared for them is pure grace. In spite of their fears, what they experience with every mouthful is the love and generosity behind Babette's effort to please them. They are filled with the fullness of God and know in their hearts that "Mercy and truth have met; righteousness and peace have kissed each other."
So it is when we accept the gifts God gives us in the spirit in which they are given. Mercy and love indeed come naturally to us when we know ourselves to be steeped in the mercy and love of God. As the second part of today's Gospel lesson tells us, we shouldn't expect anything less than Babette's feast when we pray to God for his blessings, and we pray with persistence: "Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? If you then...know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"
Pray like children, and pray with persistence. God will answer your prayers.
Amen.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Sunday, July 11, 2010
In the Whirlwind
Homily for Sunday, June 27th, 2010
Lessons:
2 Kings 2: 1-2, 6-14
Psalm 77: 1-2, 11-20
Galatians 5:1, 13-25
Luke 9: 51-62
Our expression "passing the mantle" is derived from today's Old Testament lesson, and the story is full of drama. Elijah, the old prophet, is ready to retire, and he knows God has prepared a place for him in that great retirement home in the sky. When he attempts to leave his understudy Elisha behind, Elisha insists on going with him, saying, "As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you." As the two travel along, other "men of the company of prophets" join them, so that ultimately there are fifty spectators there to witness the change of command.
When Elijah arrives at the banks of the Jordan River, he takes the mantle from his shoulders and strikes the river with it, causing the waters to part for the two men and dry land to appear under their feet. If the fifty men from the company of prophets had harbored any doubts that Elijah was the greatest seer of their generation, this display of the waters parting must have convinced them that Elijah came directly from the line of Moses. What happens next sounds like pure Hollywood, like something from The Raiders of the Lost Ark. On the far side of the river Jordan, a chariot of fire drawn by flaming horses descends from the sky and sweeps Elijah to heaven in a whirlwind. Overcome by the power and the splendor, Elisha exclaims, "Father, Father! The chariot of Israel and its horsemen!" Then he takes up the mantle that had fallen from Elijah and, striking the waters, parts the Jordan and crosses to where the fifty prophets await him. Dazzled, they greet him with the cry, "The spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha!" Thus passes the mantle of power from one generation to the next.
Whirlwinds and waters parting and chariots of fire may seem fanciful and distant from our own experiences, but creation has a way of reminding us of its innate power from time to time. On Thursday afternoon at 4:30, I left my office in the School of Engineering at UVA and began walking to my car, parked about a mile away. It was 100 degrees outside when I set out, and the air felt like a heated oven. I was heading north, and to the north and west of the city, there was the blackest cloud I've ever seen. A huge streak of lightning touched straight down to the ground, and small drops of moisture, not quite rain, began to pelt my face. Just as I got into my car and slammed the door, the clouds opened and rain poured down in waves. I pulled from the parking lot, noticing the way the wind was whipping the trees, and took my usual back roads shortcut past the Darden School and down to Millmont Street, behind Barracks Road Shopping center. As I turned onto Millmont, the wind was so powerful that branches of trees were blowing across my path, and I realized it was very foolish for me to keep driving, so I pulled over, behind a building and away from the flying debris. The wind was so strong, I could feel my car rocking. Just behind me on Millmont a giant tree had been toppled and lay across the street, completely blocking it.
When the rain let up enough so I could see to drive, I made my way to Barracks Road, where I turned left to head for Georgetown Road and my home in Earlysville. The power was out and no streetlights were working. Small branches, leaves, and other debris lay in the streets. A tree in the median was split in half with its broken wing dangling. The cars around me moved along with caution but no lack of determination. Just west of the intersection of Barracks Road with Georgetown, a tree lay across Barracks Road. I turned onto Georgetown, where I saw a young Hispanic man tugging at a huge branch not quite severed from a tree, trying to tear it down and get it out of the way of oncoming traffic. As I passed him, I called to him to be careful. Ahead of me the traffic was stopped and as I sat and waited, the cars ahead of me turned around and came back, one by one, so I joined that procession. Later I found out that there were multiple trees and power lines down across Georgetown Road. In fact, the road was still closed to traffic the next morning. I made my way home on Rte. 29 to Earlysville, grateful the micro-burst (a kind of mini-tornado) had not extended to Earlysville.
Physicists tell us that everything in the universe is made of matter and energy. We ourselves can be broken down into atoms, our essential matter, and energy. Jesuit priest, philosopher and scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said that energy is the spirit of God. The microburst I experienced demonstrates the power of energy when meteorological forces collide. Such forces are neither good or bad; they simply exist as part of God's creation beyond the comprehension of most of us. They inspire the kind of awe Elisha experienced at the sight of the fiery chariot in the whirlwind. As the psalmist says,
You are the God who works wonders *
and have declared your power among the peoples.
By your strength you have redeemed your people, *
the children of Jacob and Joseph.
The waters saw you, O God;
the waters saw you and trembled; *
the very depths were shaken.
The clouds poured out water;
the skies thundered; *
your arrows flashed to and fro;
The sound of your thunder was in the whirlwind; *
your lightnings lit up the world; *
the earth trembled and shook.
Fifteen years ago today, meteorological forces collided in such a way that 23 inches of rain fell in 24 hours over this beautiful valley and Graves Mill nearly washed completely away. Of the many buildings that constituted what we called downtown Graves Mill, only the old mill, the schoolhouse, and this chapel survived the flood. Houses, barns and other out-buildings in the larger community were washed away, and the devastation made the valley look like a bomb had been dropped on it. Many bridges in Madison County were washed away, and the road to Graves Mill was impassable. In the first days after the flood, when folks here were trying to clean up and put their lives back together, it was difficult to believe that this place and its people could ever recover from the thousand-year catastrophe.
If we allowed ourselves to sink into despair, it was because we were forgetting the other kind of power God exerts: the power of "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, and gentleness." People came from near and distant places to help with the clean-up and the earth began to heal itself. By the following spring, the pastures were green again. Today, someone who has never been in this valley would not be able to guess how much destruction was wrought here only fifteen years ago. The forces of nature can indeed be awesome in their destructive power, but they are also awesome in their gentle, persistent healing grace.
Teilhard de Chardin composed this prayer, which he called a "Hymn to Matter," and I think it is well-suited to this anniversary:
"I bless you, matter, and you I acclaim; not as the pontiffs of science or the moralizing preachers depict you, debased, disfigured--a mass of brute forces and base appetites--but as you reveal yourself to me today, in your totality and your true nature...
You who batter us and then dress our wounds, you who resist us and yield to us, you who wreck and build, you who shackle and liberate, the sap of our souls, the hand of God, the flesh of Christ; it is you, matter, that I bless.
I acclaim you as the divine milieu, charged with creative power, as the ocean stirred by the Spirit, as the clay molded and infused with the life by the incarnate Word...
Raise me up then, matter, to those heights, through struggle and separation, and death; raise me up until, at long last, it becomes possible for me in perfect chastity to embrace the universe."
AMEN.
Lessons:
2 Kings 2: 1-2, 6-14
Psalm 77: 1-2, 11-20
Galatians 5:1, 13-25
Luke 9: 51-62
Our expression "passing the mantle" is derived from today's Old Testament lesson, and the story is full of drama. Elijah, the old prophet, is ready to retire, and he knows God has prepared a place for him in that great retirement home in the sky. When he attempts to leave his understudy Elisha behind, Elisha insists on going with him, saying, "As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you." As the two travel along, other "men of the company of prophets" join them, so that ultimately there are fifty spectators there to witness the change of command.
When Elijah arrives at the banks of the Jordan River, he takes the mantle from his shoulders and strikes the river with it, causing the waters to part for the two men and dry land to appear under their feet. If the fifty men from the company of prophets had harbored any doubts that Elijah was the greatest seer of their generation, this display of the waters parting must have convinced them that Elijah came directly from the line of Moses. What happens next sounds like pure Hollywood, like something from The Raiders of the Lost Ark. On the far side of the river Jordan, a chariot of fire drawn by flaming horses descends from the sky and sweeps Elijah to heaven in a whirlwind. Overcome by the power and the splendor, Elisha exclaims, "Father, Father! The chariot of Israel and its horsemen!" Then he takes up the mantle that had fallen from Elijah and, striking the waters, parts the Jordan and crosses to where the fifty prophets await him. Dazzled, they greet him with the cry, "The spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha!" Thus passes the mantle of power from one generation to the next.
Whirlwinds and waters parting and chariots of fire may seem fanciful and distant from our own experiences, but creation has a way of reminding us of its innate power from time to time. On Thursday afternoon at 4:30, I left my office in the School of Engineering at UVA and began walking to my car, parked about a mile away. It was 100 degrees outside when I set out, and the air felt like a heated oven. I was heading north, and to the north and west of the city, there was the blackest cloud I've ever seen. A huge streak of lightning touched straight down to the ground, and small drops of moisture, not quite rain, began to pelt my face. Just as I got into my car and slammed the door, the clouds opened and rain poured down in waves. I pulled from the parking lot, noticing the way the wind was whipping the trees, and took my usual back roads shortcut past the Darden School and down to Millmont Street, behind Barracks Road Shopping center. As I turned onto Millmont, the wind was so powerful that branches of trees were blowing across my path, and I realized it was very foolish for me to keep driving, so I pulled over, behind a building and away from the flying debris. The wind was so strong, I could feel my car rocking. Just behind me on Millmont a giant tree had been toppled and lay across the street, completely blocking it.
When the rain let up enough so I could see to drive, I made my way to Barracks Road, where I turned left to head for Georgetown Road and my home in Earlysville. The power was out and no streetlights were working. Small branches, leaves, and other debris lay in the streets. A tree in the median was split in half with its broken wing dangling. The cars around me moved along with caution but no lack of determination. Just west of the intersection of Barracks Road with Georgetown, a tree lay across Barracks Road. I turned onto Georgetown, where I saw a young Hispanic man tugging at a huge branch not quite severed from a tree, trying to tear it down and get it out of the way of oncoming traffic. As I passed him, I called to him to be careful. Ahead of me the traffic was stopped and as I sat and waited, the cars ahead of me turned around and came back, one by one, so I joined that procession. Later I found out that there were multiple trees and power lines down across Georgetown Road. In fact, the road was still closed to traffic the next morning. I made my way home on Rte. 29 to Earlysville, grateful the micro-burst (a kind of mini-tornado) had not extended to Earlysville.
Physicists tell us that everything in the universe is made of matter and energy. We ourselves can be broken down into atoms, our essential matter, and energy. Jesuit priest, philosopher and scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said that energy is the spirit of God. The microburst I experienced demonstrates the power of energy when meteorological forces collide. Such forces are neither good or bad; they simply exist as part of God's creation beyond the comprehension of most of us. They inspire the kind of awe Elisha experienced at the sight of the fiery chariot in the whirlwind. As the psalmist says,
You are the God who works wonders *
and have declared your power among the peoples.
By your strength you have redeemed your people, *
the children of Jacob and Joseph.
The waters saw you, O God;
the waters saw you and trembled; *
the very depths were shaken.
The clouds poured out water;
the skies thundered; *
your arrows flashed to and fro;
The sound of your thunder was in the whirlwind; *
your lightnings lit up the world; *
the earth trembled and shook.
Fifteen years ago today, meteorological forces collided in such a way that 23 inches of rain fell in 24 hours over this beautiful valley and Graves Mill nearly washed completely away. Of the many buildings that constituted what we called downtown Graves Mill, only the old mill, the schoolhouse, and this chapel survived the flood. Houses, barns and other out-buildings in the larger community were washed away, and the devastation made the valley look like a bomb had been dropped on it. Many bridges in Madison County were washed away, and the road to Graves Mill was impassable. In the first days after the flood, when folks here were trying to clean up and put their lives back together, it was difficult to believe that this place and its people could ever recover from the thousand-year catastrophe.
If we allowed ourselves to sink into despair, it was because we were forgetting the other kind of power God exerts: the power of "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, and gentleness." People came from near and distant places to help with the clean-up and the earth began to heal itself. By the following spring, the pastures were green again. Today, someone who has never been in this valley would not be able to guess how much destruction was wrought here only fifteen years ago. The forces of nature can indeed be awesome in their destructive power, but they are also awesome in their gentle, persistent healing grace.
Teilhard de Chardin composed this prayer, which he called a "Hymn to Matter," and I think it is well-suited to this anniversary:
"I bless you, matter, and you I acclaim; not as the pontiffs of science or the moralizing preachers depict you, debased, disfigured--a mass of brute forces and base appetites--but as you reveal yourself to me today, in your totality and your true nature...
You who batter us and then dress our wounds, you who resist us and yield to us, you who wreck and build, you who shackle and liberate, the sap of our souls, the hand of God, the flesh of Christ; it is you, matter, that I bless.
I acclaim you as the divine milieu, charged with creative power, as the ocean stirred by the Spirit, as the clay molded and infused with the life by the incarnate Word...
Raise me up then, matter, to those heights, through struggle and separation, and death; raise me up until, at long last, it becomes possible for me in perfect chastity to embrace the universe."
AMEN.
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