"And we call this Friday Good." These are the last words of Part IV of T. S. Eliot's poem "East Coker." A provocative statement, isn't it? As a child I wondered why on earth anyone would call this anniversary of Christ's excruciating death good. What can be good about an unjust arrest and unfair conviction? What is good about the taunting of the crowd, the flogging by the Roman soldiers, the agony of the cross, the betrayal by the disciples, even the seeming abandonment by the Father? Why do we call this day good?
The first and obvious answer is that this is the day on which Christ died to atone for our sins, the self-sacrifice that gives us hope of eternal life. But there is something more. In what we call Christ's passion, we see the man Jesus at his most divine and the Lord Christ at his most human. In his willingness to suffer and die for us, in his obedience to God and his forgiveness of the very men who kill him, we see the man's divinity. In his tormented prayer from the garden--"My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me"--we see the mortal man. When he tells his disciples they will betray him, we recognize his human loneliness. Don't we all feel the pain of this young man when he cries from the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
From the earliest days of Christianity, the question of whether Christ was truly both human and divine has been debated. In the 3rd century, a group of Christian followers of the Egyptian presbyter Arius contended that since Jesus was created by God, he was therefore subordinate to and less than the Father. He was, in their eyes, an ordinary mortal. At about the same time, the Gnostics were contending that Christ was completely divine and in no way human, that he was purely of the spiritual realm. Imagine how our understanding of the Lord would have changed if either of these interpretations prevailed. Our current belief that Jesus Christ is both fully human and fully divine underpins our understanding of his love for us.
The church's early controversy ultimately led to the 1st Council of Nicaea in 325 CE, the source of the Nicene Creed we say to this day and reaffirm whenever baptismal vows are made. We recite the Nicene Creed so often that what it says probably eludes us. Why it was written, why we say it is simple: the Nicene Creed declares the full divinity and the full humanity of Jesus. It defines the three figures of the Trinity as being equal and inseparable. Listen to some of the familiar passages from it; see how they uphold both the divinity and the humanity of Jesus:
"We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only son of God, eternally begotten by the Father, true God from true God, begotten not made, of one being with the Father. For us, and for our salvation, he came down from Heaven, by the power of the Holy Spirit...he was made man." Both truly human and truly divine, "he suffered death and was buried," but "on the third day he rose again."
On this day, this Good Friday, we are asked to rise with Jesus on the cross and descend with him into the tomb. We are asked to enter into his suffering, his darkness. Despite his anguished prayers the night before in the Garden, Jesus calmly responds to Pilate, "You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world." He accepts and fully understands the cup that has been given him. As Isaiah had prophesied, "He was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed."
In the first line of the Good Friday section of his poem, T.S. Eliot calls Christ "the wounded surgeon," who heals us, as the prophet said, "by his bruises."
The wounded surgeon plies the steel
That questions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer's art
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart....
The dripping blood our only drink,
The bloody flesh our only food:
In spite of which we like to think
That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood-
Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good
As the poem suggests, we spend many of our days in lightness, going about our business, believing we are "sound," without considering the real cost of the peace we have been given by our assurance of salvation. On this day, this Good Friday, we are asked to ponder the pain and the darkness of the cross and the suffering of the one who gave his life for us. "Like a lamb he was led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth."
This willing descent into darkness, this complete surrender, the spiritual choice modeled by Christ, has been called the via negativa, the descending way, and it can be terrifying. In spite of his pain, Jesus trusted God and God's plan. In spite of the pain for his Son, God knew that ultimately His plan would be successful. Jesus surrendered his mortal fears and followed the preordained path to the cross. Do we ever truly surrender our fears, worries, preoccupations to God? When we manage to let go in that way, it can feel like "sinking into the arms of God," as Meister Eckhart, 13th century mystic, described it. Maybe, like me, you only surrender when you have exhausted every recourse in a terrible situation until all you can do is surrender it to God. Maybe, like me, when you find that you are finally compelled to surrender, you feel immediate release and you know, on some very deep level, that "all shall be well." Don't you wish you could remember this feeling the next time you find yourself in turmoil? Why do we always take back the illusion we have of controlling our lives? Why is surrender so hard for us? I guess it's because we are fully human--and not very divine!
As many times as I've heard and read the Gospel stories of Holy Week, I still find my heart pounding as the events move relentlessly on to their bitter end. Jesus clearly knows all along what will happen--who will betray him, how he will die--but he continues along the path without veering from it. Yes, he has a few weak seconds of mortal fear and anxiety in the garden and on the cross, and in those moments we recognize our human brother. But his weakness is completely subsumed by his staunch courage and unwavering obedience. Those brief glimpses of human frailty, however, are essential to our understanding of the Lord. The Nicene Creed reminds us that it is important for us to believe that Christ was both man and God. As Edmond Browning, former Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church so beautifully states it,
"Jesus was really divine and really human. The way in which he lived that out has always been a mystery. People have often solved it by claiming Jesus didn't really feel the things we feel: no doubts, no temptations, no yearning for love and intimacy. This cannot be! His sacrifice was nothing if his life and its joys were a matter of indifference to him. Part of the glory of the Cross is its sorrow: a young man with everything to live for lays down his life out of a love purer than any the world has known."
Amen. Amen.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Friday, March 4, 2011
A Loving Parent
Homily for Sunday, February 27th, 2011
Scriptures:
Isaiah 49: 8-16a
Psalm 131
1 Corinthians 4:1-5
Matthew 6:24-34
Since I preach only one Sunday a month, I am usually a little anxious about what the appointed scripture lessons are going to be for the 4th Sunday. There are many passages in the Holy Bible that are either very difficult to comprehend or so stern and forbidding that they can be scary to think about, much less write a homily around. But I was thrilled when I opened the lectionary and found the lessons for today to be some of my very favorites. Even the collect appointed for the 8th Sunday in Epiphany is a beautiful one, and it sums up the message of today's lessons in a concise and compelling way. Let's revisit the collect now:
"Most loving Father, whose will it is for us to give thanks for all things, to fear nothing but the loss of you, and to cast all our care on you who care for us: Preserve us from faithless fears and worldly anxieties, that no clouds of this mortal life may hide from us the light of that love which is immortal, and which you have manifested to us in your Son Jesus Christ our Lord." The opening words, "Most loving Father," hint at an underlying theme in Christ's teaching: We can trust in God because God loves us as a father loves his children. In fact, I think it is safe to say that we come to believe in God and have faith in his love for us through what we learn about love from our own mothers and fathers. Trusting in God to provide all we need, as he provides for the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, relieves us of all fear. When we were very young children, we had no awareness of being in need. If we were fortunate, we had loving parents who met all of our needs before we could even name them. Having a father's hand to hold or a mother's loving arms to embrace us cast out all our fears. As the collect suggests, we grow into "faithless fears and worldly anxieties" as we confront the responsibilities and difficulties of being adults, but it doesn't have to be that way. Our loving Father and our Brother Jesus are ever with us.
For me, the passage from Matthew that begins with the words "Consider the lilies of the field" always reminds me of my dear mother, whose name was Lillian. She could not have been more loving or tender to her children, and in her own ardent faith, she exemplified the love that casts out fear. This passage also always reminds me of Graves Mill, since my earliest memories are set here, in the place where my mother was born. As a young child, in the early '60s, on summer mornings I would walk up Graves Mill road from my grandmother's home to get the mail and visit Dolly at the post office. Along the roadside, orange tiger lilies grew among tall stalks of Queen Anne's lace and blue bachelor's buttons. The fields were full of wildflowers, daisies and clover and buttercups, and bobwhites called from the fencerows. Singing as it tumbled over stones, the Rapidan River was my companion. Here, it was easy to feel both protected and loved, the way these old blue mountains surround the valley like a shield. Here, it has always been easy for me to know the presence of God, to know that I am "preserved from faithless fears and worldly anxieties." As today's psalm reminds us, it is in humble trust that we turn to God and find God's nurturing presence: "like a child upon its mother's breast, my soul is quieted within me."
The verses from Isaiah speak to those who have known the loving care of good parents, but is also offers consolation to the ones who may not have been so fortunate. God says, "Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palm of my hands." These words are not simply reassuring; they are insistent! God says "See! Look my way and you will find how very near I am to you. You are not only held safely in my hands, you are inscribed there. You are part of me."
When I was a very small child, I was afraid of whippoorwills. Nowadays, I miss hearing their beautiful call. Whippoorwills do not seem to be as plentiful as they were back in those days, and I rarely hear them. But back then, I couldn't fall asleep some nights for hearing their loud cries, and "Whip poor Will" didn't sound very friendly to me. One of my favorite memories of my father is of the night he found me awake, scared of the whippoorwill, and offered me some comfort. Sitting next to me, he turned on the lamp by my bedside and held out his hands, cupped together. He said, "Sue Anne, the whippoorwill is just a little bird. It could fit right here in the palm of my hands." I was never afraid of a whippoorwill again.
Jesus says to us, "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you-- you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, `What will we eat?' or `What will we drink?' or `What will we wear?'... your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."
When we are children and our parents are nearby, we trust we have nothing to fear. We trust that our needs will be met. Being so fortunate, we are grateful for our blessings. Today's collect begins, "Most loving father, whose will it is for us to give thanks for all things, to fear nothing but the loss of you, and to cast all our care on you who care for us." God's will is for us to respond to our blessings with gratitude and to release our fears and worries to Him. I lost my mom twenty years ago and my dad, seventeen, but I cannot lose the Lord in the same way. The only way I can lose the one who has me inscribed on the palm of His hand is if I turn away from Him.
Oh, Lord, remove from us our faithless fears and help us, like children, to trust and love you more and to live our lives in joyful gratitude. Amen.
Scriptures:
Isaiah 49: 8-16a
Psalm 131
1 Corinthians 4:1-5
Matthew 6:24-34
Since I preach only one Sunday a month, I am usually a little anxious about what the appointed scripture lessons are going to be for the 4th Sunday. There are many passages in the Holy Bible that are either very difficult to comprehend or so stern and forbidding that they can be scary to think about, much less write a homily around. But I was thrilled when I opened the lectionary and found the lessons for today to be some of my very favorites. Even the collect appointed for the 8th Sunday in Epiphany is a beautiful one, and it sums up the message of today's lessons in a concise and compelling way. Let's revisit the collect now:
"Most loving Father, whose will it is for us to give thanks for all things, to fear nothing but the loss of you, and to cast all our care on you who care for us: Preserve us from faithless fears and worldly anxieties, that no clouds of this mortal life may hide from us the light of that love which is immortal, and which you have manifested to us in your Son Jesus Christ our Lord." The opening words, "Most loving Father," hint at an underlying theme in Christ's teaching: We can trust in God because God loves us as a father loves his children. In fact, I think it is safe to say that we come to believe in God and have faith in his love for us through what we learn about love from our own mothers and fathers. Trusting in God to provide all we need, as he provides for the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, relieves us of all fear. When we were very young children, we had no awareness of being in need. If we were fortunate, we had loving parents who met all of our needs before we could even name them. Having a father's hand to hold or a mother's loving arms to embrace us cast out all our fears. As the collect suggests, we grow into "faithless fears and worldly anxieties" as we confront the responsibilities and difficulties of being adults, but it doesn't have to be that way. Our loving Father and our Brother Jesus are ever with us.
For me, the passage from Matthew that begins with the words "Consider the lilies of the field" always reminds me of my dear mother, whose name was Lillian. She could not have been more loving or tender to her children, and in her own ardent faith, she exemplified the love that casts out fear. This passage also always reminds me of Graves Mill, since my earliest memories are set here, in the place where my mother was born. As a young child, in the early '60s, on summer mornings I would walk up Graves Mill road from my grandmother's home to get the mail and visit Dolly at the post office. Along the roadside, orange tiger lilies grew among tall stalks of Queen Anne's lace and blue bachelor's buttons. The fields were full of wildflowers, daisies and clover and buttercups, and bobwhites called from the fencerows. Singing as it tumbled over stones, the Rapidan River was my companion. Here, it was easy to feel both protected and loved, the way these old blue mountains surround the valley like a shield. Here, it has always been easy for me to know the presence of God, to know that I am "preserved from faithless fears and worldly anxieties." As today's psalm reminds us, it is in humble trust that we turn to God and find God's nurturing presence: "like a child upon its mother's breast, my soul is quieted within me."
The verses from Isaiah speak to those who have known the loving care of good parents, but is also offers consolation to the ones who may not have been so fortunate. God says, "Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palm of my hands." These words are not simply reassuring; they are insistent! God says "See! Look my way and you will find how very near I am to you. You are not only held safely in my hands, you are inscribed there. You are part of me."
When I was a very small child, I was afraid of whippoorwills. Nowadays, I miss hearing their beautiful call. Whippoorwills do not seem to be as plentiful as they were back in those days, and I rarely hear them. But back then, I couldn't fall asleep some nights for hearing their loud cries, and "Whip poor Will" didn't sound very friendly to me. One of my favorite memories of my father is of the night he found me awake, scared of the whippoorwill, and offered me some comfort. Sitting next to me, he turned on the lamp by my bedside and held out his hands, cupped together. He said, "Sue Anne, the whippoorwill is just a little bird. It could fit right here in the palm of my hands." I was never afraid of a whippoorwill again.
Jesus says to us, "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you-- you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, `What will we eat?' or `What will we drink?' or `What will we wear?'... your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."
When we are children and our parents are nearby, we trust we have nothing to fear. We trust that our needs will be met. Being so fortunate, we are grateful for our blessings. Today's collect begins, "Most loving father, whose will it is for us to give thanks for all things, to fear nothing but the loss of you, and to cast all our care on you who care for us." God's will is for us to respond to our blessings with gratitude and to release our fears and worries to Him. I lost my mom twenty years ago and my dad, seventeen, but I cannot lose the Lord in the same way. The only way I can lose the one who has me inscribed on the palm of His hand is if I turn away from Him.
Oh, Lord, remove from us our faithless fears and help us, like children, to trust and love you more and to live our lives in joyful gratitude. Amen.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
A Meditation on Light
Homily for Sunday, January 23, 2011
Lessons:
Isaiah 9:1-4
Psalm 27: 1, 5-13
Matthew 4: 12-23
On January 2nd, as David and I were driving home after visiting family and friends in Northern Virginia, we drove through a brief rain shower near Ruckersville, and then, as we turned onto Earlysville Road, a double rainbow appeared in the sky. How propitious seemed that rare and spectacular phenomenon at the beginning of a new year and in the midst of winter!
For a variety of reasons, January has often been a difficult month for me. The days are short, dark, and cold, and it seems that bad things always happen in January... the shooting in Tucson this year and that terrible earthquake in Haiti last year are examples. A few years ago, to ease my dread of this month, I decided to make a special effort to celebrate the season of Epiphany. My artificial Christmas tree has always gone up in early December, and I decorate it with white lights and blue ornaments and call it my Advent tree. On Christmas Eve, we add red, green, and gold trimmings, and the tree is bright with Christmas cheer. Now I have removed all but the white lights, the stars, snowflakes, and angels, and I call it my Epiphany tree. I'm delighted to be able to leave it up into March this year, since Ash Wednesday is late and Epiphany is a wonderfully long season. How fitting that it is called "The Season of Light"!
But what exactly IS light? As a certainty of everyday life, we fathom light most easily in its absence; at least, in darkness we better grasp our need for light. A scientist would tell you that light is electromagnetic radiation. Just as a living organism can be broken down into cells, light is made up of photons. When sunlight makes its way through droplets of rain, it is refracted into the colors of the spectrum, and we call it a rainbow. Although we think of the sun and moon as earth's primary sources of light (other than our man-made ones), the universe is full of light not generated by its heavenly bodies. Isn't it interesting that in Genesis 1, we are told that God said "Let there be light" on the first day? It isn't until Day 4 that He creates the sun and moon. Light, then, simply IS. Like air, it is a substance we can move through in space and time. Although it is intangible, light has a definite and important part to play in our lives.
The shorter days of the winter months, the preponderance of darkness, and the lengthening of twilight in the late afternoon have led to an ailment that afflicts a significant number of people--Seasonal Affective Disorder, more commonly (and aptly) called SAD. People who suffer from SAD are urged to use sunlamps and to go outdoors in midday, when the sun is brightest. Even if we've never been diagnosed with SAD, most of us can be a little blue on the darkest days. As much as we long for light during the darkness of our winters, imagine what light must have meant to people during the millennia of human history before the invention of electricity. Nowadays one has to drive very far out on back country roads to escape what is called light pollution, and we have more light than we need at the flip of a switch. Last February, by the fourth day of being out of power, I felt a shroud of gloom at nightfall, and I wasn't sure I could endure it for even one more day. Please imagine with me the world as Isaiah and Jesus, Shakespeare and Thomas Jefferson, and even our great-great grandparents knew it, when every evening brought unyielding night. The light produced by candles, torches, and oil lamps couldn't penetrate the darkness beyond a few feet, and darkness must have seemed like a wall.
A world that experienced genuine, almost tangible darkness for half of every day is the context for today's words from the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah speaks of the Lord as a "great light." "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness--on them, light has shined." The preciousness and power of God for his people is summed up in Isaiah's equating of God with light. But it is the ending of this chapter in Isaiah, Chapter 9, that connects the splendid origin of that "great light" to the coming of the Messiah: "For a child has been born to us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace." Jesus is the Light of the World. He says so himself in John 8:12. "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."
Light as an image of truth, power, life, and hope hearkens back to the first story of creation in Genesis, when the earth was called "a formless void" and darkness covered everything, until God spoke and said, "Let there be light." Isaiah tells us that the arrival of Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of the creation promise. "His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace..." The star that heralded his birth and drew three wise men from the east is the first association of light with Jesus. What were these wise men really seeking? Some scholars surmise that they came from Persia. At the time of Jesus's birth, the dominant religion of Persia was Zoroastrianism, whose doctrine was to believe in one universal God, a God that espoused truth, beauty, and order. For three men of high station (they are called kings, after all) and great learning to make such a difficult journey, it suggests they had very high expectations of the infant they came to honor. Could these men, who may have believed in one universal and unifying God, have sought out the infant hoping he would bring peace to all mankind? Is the story of the Epiphany foreshadowing the arrival of God's kingdom on earth?..."Thy kingdom come," we say...
In today's gospel lesson from Matthew 4, Jesus is specifically connected to Isaiah's prophecy of the Prince of Peace; in verses 12 through 17, Isaiah's words are rephrased. As he begins his ministry, Jesus tells the people that he has come to bring the kingdom of heaven: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near." And what will God's kingdom look like? In God's kingdom, people are cured of every disease and every sickness, as Matthew 4:23 tells us. Jesus is the light of the world. He is also love. In last Sunday's lesson from Living the Questions, a biblical scholar suggested that the idea of the kingdom of God is an easy one to understand if we remember that Jesus and everyone around him lived under the rule of a Roman emperor. The world would have been a very different place with God on the throne instead of the emperor. Better yet, this scholar suggested, if God was and is king, what would God's budget look like? How would Jesus spend your tax dollars? As he himself said, "Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."
Here, of course, light means having little weight and being easy to carry. Even in our well-lighted world, the significance of light is still reflected in our use of the word. As a word, light has many happy connotations. Shall we mediate on a few of them?
When your grandchild calls you on the phone and says, "Are you coming over?" (as mine did yesterday), you might think, as I did, that child is the light of your life.
When you "see the light," you have finally understood something that had been perplexing and troubling you.
To "shed light" on something is to bring it out into the open so that everyone can appreciate its meaning.
When a person's face "lights up," it is full of joy.
Someone with a "light touch" has the grace to deal with others tactfully and delicately.
When a butterfly "lights" on a flower, anyone who sees it may be cheered.
To have a "light heart" is to feel released from care and worry.
If you are "light on your feet" you are nimble and graceful.
The Age of "Enlightenment" was a time when reason and science overcame superstition and prejudice.
Before I get too carried away with the various uses of the word light, I would like to ask all of us to consider what our world would be like if the light of Jesus had never entered it. Seriously, can you imagine this world without him?
I would never ask such a question anywhere but in a church. Here, we are united in our belief in Jesus as Lord. We profess the truth of his teachings and, in calling ourselves Christian, we acknowledge our faith in him. As Episcopalians, we are all part of the Anglican communion, and as Americans, we have been shaped by Western culture and Western civilization. The laws we live by and the way we conduct our daily endeavors all reflect the philosophy and mores handed down to us by our European ancestors. From the Magna Carta to the King James version of the Bible, from our own constitution to Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address," we are a people who have inherited the benefits of living in God's kingdom. We believe in justice, in mercy, in equality, in our responsibility for and to others. We believe in self-sacrifice for the greater good, in courage, in integrity. All of these principles were modeled for us and for our ancestors by Jesus Christ, the Light of the World. The kingdom is very near when the Light prevails.
Lessons:
Isaiah 9:1-4
Psalm 27: 1, 5-13
Matthew 4: 12-23
On January 2nd, as David and I were driving home after visiting family and friends in Northern Virginia, we drove through a brief rain shower near Ruckersville, and then, as we turned onto Earlysville Road, a double rainbow appeared in the sky. How propitious seemed that rare and spectacular phenomenon at the beginning of a new year and in the midst of winter!
For a variety of reasons, January has often been a difficult month for me. The days are short, dark, and cold, and it seems that bad things always happen in January... the shooting in Tucson this year and that terrible earthquake in Haiti last year are examples. A few years ago, to ease my dread of this month, I decided to make a special effort to celebrate the season of Epiphany. My artificial Christmas tree has always gone up in early December, and I decorate it with white lights and blue ornaments and call it my Advent tree. On Christmas Eve, we add red, green, and gold trimmings, and the tree is bright with Christmas cheer. Now I have removed all but the white lights, the stars, snowflakes, and angels, and I call it my Epiphany tree. I'm delighted to be able to leave it up into March this year, since Ash Wednesday is late and Epiphany is a wonderfully long season. How fitting that it is called "The Season of Light"!
But what exactly IS light? As a certainty of everyday life, we fathom light most easily in its absence; at least, in darkness we better grasp our need for light. A scientist would tell you that light is electromagnetic radiation. Just as a living organism can be broken down into cells, light is made up of photons. When sunlight makes its way through droplets of rain, it is refracted into the colors of the spectrum, and we call it a rainbow. Although we think of the sun and moon as earth's primary sources of light (other than our man-made ones), the universe is full of light not generated by its heavenly bodies. Isn't it interesting that in Genesis 1, we are told that God said "Let there be light" on the first day? It isn't until Day 4 that He creates the sun and moon. Light, then, simply IS. Like air, it is a substance we can move through in space and time. Although it is intangible, light has a definite and important part to play in our lives.
The shorter days of the winter months, the preponderance of darkness, and the lengthening of twilight in the late afternoon have led to an ailment that afflicts a significant number of people--Seasonal Affective Disorder, more commonly (and aptly) called SAD. People who suffer from SAD are urged to use sunlamps and to go outdoors in midday, when the sun is brightest. Even if we've never been diagnosed with SAD, most of us can be a little blue on the darkest days. As much as we long for light during the darkness of our winters, imagine what light must have meant to people during the millennia of human history before the invention of electricity. Nowadays one has to drive very far out on back country roads to escape what is called light pollution, and we have more light than we need at the flip of a switch. Last February, by the fourth day of being out of power, I felt a shroud of gloom at nightfall, and I wasn't sure I could endure it for even one more day. Please imagine with me the world as Isaiah and Jesus, Shakespeare and Thomas Jefferson, and even our great-great grandparents knew it, when every evening brought unyielding night. The light produced by candles, torches, and oil lamps couldn't penetrate the darkness beyond a few feet, and darkness must have seemed like a wall.
A world that experienced genuine, almost tangible darkness for half of every day is the context for today's words from the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah speaks of the Lord as a "great light." "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness--on them, light has shined." The preciousness and power of God for his people is summed up in Isaiah's equating of God with light. But it is the ending of this chapter in Isaiah, Chapter 9, that connects the splendid origin of that "great light" to the coming of the Messiah: "For a child has been born to us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace." Jesus is the Light of the World. He says so himself in John 8:12. "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."
Light as an image of truth, power, life, and hope hearkens back to the first story of creation in Genesis, when the earth was called "a formless void" and darkness covered everything, until God spoke and said, "Let there be light." Isaiah tells us that the arrival of Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of the creation promise. "His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace..." The star that heralded his birth and drew three wise men from the east is the first association of light with Jesus. What were these wise men really seeking? Some scholars surmise that they came from Persia. At the time of Jesus's birth, the dominant religion of Persia was Zoroastrianism, whose doctrine was to believe in one universal God, a God that espoused truth, beauty, and order. For three men of high station (they are called kings, after all) and great learning to make such a difficult journey, it suggests they had very high expectations of the infant they came to honor. Could these men, who may have believed in one universal and unifying God, have sought out the infant hoping he would bring peace to all mankind? Is the story of the Epiphany foreshadowing the arrival of God's kingdom on earth?..."Thy kingdom come," we say...
In today's gospel lesson from Matthew 4, Jesus is specifically connected to Isaiah's prophecy of the Prince of Peace; in verses 12 through 17, Isaiah's words are rephrased. As he begins his ministry, Jesus tells the people that he has come to bring the kingdom of heaven: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near." And what will God's kingdom look like? In God's kingdom, people are cured of every disease and every sickness, as Matthew 4:23 tells us. Jesus is the light of the world. He is also love. In last Sunday's lesson from Living the Questions, a biblical scholar suggested that the idea of the kingdom of God is an easy one to understand if we remember that Jesus and everyone around him lived under the rule of a Roman emperor. The world would have been a very different place with God on the throne instead of the emperor. Better yet, this scholar suggested, if God was and is king, what would God's budget look like? How would Jesus spend your tax dollars? As he himself said, "Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."
Here, of course, light means having little weight and being easy to carry. Even in our well-lighted world, the significance of light is still reflected in our use of the word. As a word, light has many happy connotations. Shall we mediate on a few of them?
When your grandchild calls you on the phone and says, "Are you coming over?" (as mine did yesterday), you might think, as I did, that child is the light of your life.
When you "see the light," you have finally understood something that had been perplexing and troubling you.
To "shed light" on something is to bring it out into the open so that everyone can appreciate its meaning.
When a person's face "lights up," it is full of joy.
Someone with a "light touch" has the grace to deal with others tactfully and delicately.
When a butterfly "lights" on a flower, anyone who sees it may be cheered.
To have a "light heart" is to feel released from care and worry.
If you are "light on your feet" you are nimble and graceful.
The Age of "Enlightenment" was a time when reason and science overcame superstition and prejudice.
Before I get too carried away with the various uses of the word light, I would like to ask all of us to consider what our world would be like if the light of Jesus had never entered it. Seriously, can you imagine this world without him?
I would never ask such a question anywhere but in a church. Here, we are united in our belief in Jesus as Lord. We profess the truth of his teachings and, in calling ourselves Christian, we acknowledge our faith in him. As Episcopalians, we are all part of the Anglican communion, and as Americans, we have been shaped by Western culture and Western civilization. The laws we live by and the way we conduct our daily endeavors all reflect the philosophy and mores handed down to us by our European ancestors. From the Magna Carta to the King James version of the Bible, from our own constitution to Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address," we are a people who have inherited the benefits of living in God's kingdom. We believe in justice, in mercy, in equality, in our responsibility for and to others. We believe in self-sacrifice for the greater good, in courage, in integrity. All of these principles were modeled for us and for our ancestors by Jesus Christ, the Light of the World. The kingdom is very near when the Light prevails.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
What the Ducks Do for Us
Homily for Sunday, October 24th
Lessons:
2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12
Luke 19:1-10
The Dell Pond is a lovely oasis of peace in the midst of the racket of human endeavor on Grounds, as we say, at the University of Virginia. On Emmet Street, right next to the Curry School of Education and across from the Newcomb Hall parking garage, the little pond is passed daily by hordes of people on foot or in vehicles. For the last two years the construction of Bavaro Hall, the Curry School's new building, was going on just a stone's throw away from the pond, and now cranes and construction crews are at work on the garage across the street from it. Still, as I walk past it most days, the beautifully landscaped pond, with its water lilies and weeping willows, is the very image of tranquility and grace.
When I first began to work at my present job, a pair of domesticated ducks were permanent residents of the pond, and I monitored their activities as I walked to and from work. Watching them as they glided across the water or rested on the grass, I was touched by their dependence on each other, on the way they did everything side by side. I found myself feeling anxious for them if I didn't see them and delighted when they reappeared. Snapping turtles occasionally rise to the pond's surface, golden koi flash far beneath, and sometimes a great blue heron stands knee-deep at its edge, but the ducks have been a constant presence on the pond.
I have discovered that I am by no means the only one who feels an affectionate attachment to the Dell Pond ducks. On nice days parents with young children stop by to see and feed them, older adults relax on the bench overlooking the pond, and students snap photos of the ducks with their cell phones. One day I met one of my coworkers passing the pond, and I found out that Peter often brings the ducks cracked corn during the winter.
In the spring of '09, the white female duck disappeared and did not return. Her mate was clearly grieving, and I was devastated. There had been local news stories about a den of foxes that lived near the railroad tracks under Beta Bridge--a rabid fox had bitten someone--so I assumed a fox had killed the female duck. After a few weeks of watching the lonely duck grieve, Peter and his wife Ann called the SPCA to ask if they had any ducks who needed a home, and three new ducks came to live at Dell Pond. The original lone duck was immediately enfolded into the new flock. Last winter when deep snow covered the ground and the pond was frozen, I wondered how the ducks would manage, but they survived. Since then, another buff-colored female duck has disappeared, but the remaining three ducks are always together.
What have the ducks done for us? What do they represent? A community of caring has sprung up around these ducks, and although we don't all know one another, we share a common cause. When one of the female ducks was laying eggs on the grassy turf beside the pond, a student left a sign near the eggs, imploring the groundskeepers not to discard the eggs. My friend Peter brings them cracked corn, and children toss bread crumbs their way. I believe I am not the only person who verbally greets the ducks upon encountering them. Those three brave and vulnerable ducks are the unifying bond of a group of otherwise unconnected people.
Shared belief in Christ is the common cause that creates a community of worship and brings us all here to gather under this one roof. Though our lives, our politics, and our opinions on outside issues may vary greatly, our belief in the Lord Jesus Christ unites us. We expect to encounter the Risen Lord here in each other. As Henri Nouwen said, "God has given us the church as the place where God becomes God-with-us." In the ways that we worship together and love one another, we experience God. Community is essential for that purpose.
In today's epistle, Paul writes to the Thessalonians, "We must always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of everyone of you for one another is increasing." Paul hails the church at Thessalonica as a model church because the people there lived in mutual love and support of one another. We are all called to be part of such a community, with our common cause the love of the Lord, and our expression of this love revealed in the way we treat each other and our neighbors.
Our gospel lesson for today, the story of Jesus's encounter with a tax collector named Zacchaeus, perfectly illustrates the inclusiveness of the Lord's community. You may remember the old Bible school song about Zacchaeus and what a "wee little man was he." It's a silly song, so I won't repeat it, especially since the song fails to convey one very important fact about Zacchaeus: though he may have been a man short in physical stature, Zacchaeus was not equally short in economic or social status. Zacchaeus was a chief tax collector and a very rich man. Why would such a powerful man press to get through the crowd to see a controversial itinerant preacher? Why would this tax collector, hated by his fellow Jews because of his position, risk making a fool of himself by climbing a tree to see Jesus? God has a way of placing such desires in our hearts; we love God because he first loved us. Zacchaeus must have felt his heart stirred by the words of Jesus, and his heart was rewarded when Jesus looked up in the sycamore tree and said, "Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today."
Others in the crowd grumbled because Jesus chose to go to the house of someone they considered a sinner and a rogue. They could find no common ground with Zacchaeus, and they judged him for his obvious faults. But Zacchaeus, at the Lord's invitation, was more than willing to become a part of the community of believers, even though his self-righteous neighbors wished to exclude him. He promised the Lord to give half of all he had to the poor and to make reparation to those he had harmed. Jesus has the final word for anyone who thinks he or she is better behaved and more worthy of the kingdom than someone else: "Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and save the lost."
I fear there are too many old stories and bad jokes about St. Peter standing at the pearly gates and barring the entrance to heaven. That kind of expectation has all of us casting judgment on ourselves and on each other, deciding who is good and who is bad, who will make it into the kingdom and who will not. Truly, judging is not and has never been our job, and we can give thanks for that. How grateful should we be for the wideness of God's mercy that forgives us seventy times seven!
As former Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church Edmond Browning wrote: "The church is a group of people united in gratitude to God for the redemption of the whole creation from the decay of sin and death, not an elaborate set of reasons why I am saved and you are not...What will we be asked when we stand before God? Were you right all the time? Do you qualify for membership? That is not my image of God's judgment. I think we will be asked if we loved God and tried to show it in the things we did." Bishop Browning is really speaking of the greatest and most simple commandment, the one the Lord told us was the only one we need to remember. "Love the Lord your God with your whole heart and love your neighbor as yourself."
Like the community of duck fanciers who pass by the Dell Pond, the church is a place where the common cause of love is the bond that unites us all. And like the ducks themselves, we are better off when we stick together.
Lessons:
2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12
Luke 19:1-10
The Dell Pond is a lovely oasis of peace in the midst of the racket of human endeavor on Grounds, as we say, at the University of Virginia. On Emmet Street, right next to the Curry School of Education and across from the Newcomb Hall parking garage, the little pond is passed daily by hordes of people on foot or in vehicles. For the last two years the construction of Bavaro Hall, the Curry School's new building, was going on just a stone's throw away from the pond, and now cranes and construction crews are at work on the garage across the street from it. Still, as I walk past it most days, the beautifully landscaped pond, with its water lilies and weeping willows, is the very image of tranquility and grace.
When I first began to work at my present job, a pair of domesticated ducks were permanent residents of the pond, and I monitored their activities as I walked to and from work. Watching them as they glided across the water or rested on the grass, I was touched by their dependence on each other, on the way they did everything side by side. I found myself feeling anxious for them if I didn't see them and delighted when they reappeared. Snapping turtles occasionally rise to the pond's surface, golden koi flash far beneath, and sometimes a great blue heron stands knee-deep at its edge, but the ducks have been a constant presence on the pond.
I have discovered that I am by no means the only one who feels an affectionate attachment to the Dell Pond ducks. On nice days parents with young children stop by to see and feed them, older adults relax on the bench overlooking the pond, and students snap photos of the ducks with their cell phones. One day I met one of my coworkers passing the pond, and I found out that Peter often brings the ducks cracked corn during the winter.
In the spring of '09, the white female duck disappeared and did not return. Her mate was clearly grieving, and I was devastated. There had been local news stories about a den of foxes that lived near the railroad tracks under Beta Bridge--a rabid fox had bitten someone--so I assumed a fox had killed the female duck. After a few weeks of watching the lonely duck grieve, Peter and his wife Ann called the SPCA to ask if they had any ducks who needed a home, and three new ducks came to live at Dell Pond. The original lone duck was immediately enfolded into the new flock. Last winter when deep snow covered the ground and the pond was frozen, I wondered how the ducks would manage, but they survived. Since then, another buff-colored female duck has disappeared, but the remaining three ducks are always together.
What have the ducks done for us? What do they represent? A community of caring has sprung up around these ducks, and although we don't all know one another, we share a common cause. When one of the female ducks was laying eggs on the grassy turf beside the pond, a student left a sign near the eggs, imploring the groundskeepers not to discard the eggs. My friend Peter brings them cracked corn, and children toss bread crumbs their way. I believe I am not the only person who verbally greets the ducks upon encountering them. Those three brave and vulnerable ducks are the unifying bond of a group of otherwise unconnected people.
Shared belief in Christ is the common cause that creates a community of worship and brings us all here to gather under this one roof. Though our lives, our politics, and our opinions on outside issues may vary greatly, our belief in the Lord Jesus Christ unites us. We expect to encounter the Risen Lord here in each other. As Henri Nouwen said, "God has given us the church as the place where God becomes God-with-us." In the ways that we worship together and love one another, we experience God. Community is essential for that purpose.
In today's epistle, Paul writes to the Thessalonians, "We must always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of everyone of you for one another is increasing." Paul hails the church at Thessalonica as a model church because the people there lived in mutual love and support of one another. We are all called to be part of such a community, with our common cause the love of the Lord, and our expression of this love revealed in the way we treat each other and our neighbors.
Our gospel lesson for today, the story of Jesus's encounter with a tax collector named Zacchaeus, perfectly illustrates the inclusiveness of the Lord's community. You may remember the old Bible school song about Zacchaeus and what a "wee little man was he." It's a silly song, so I won't repeat it, especially since the song fails to convey one very important fact about Zacchaeus: though he may have been a man short in physical stature, Zacchaeus was not equally short in economic or social status. Zacchaeus was a chief tax collector and a very rich man. Why would such a powerful man press to get through the crowd to see a controversial itinerant preacher? Why would this tax collector, hated by his fellow Jews because of his position, risk making a fool of himself by climbing a tree to see Jesus? God has a way of placing such desires in our hearts; we love God because he first loved us. Zacchaeus must have felt his heart stirred by the words of Jesus, and his heart was rewarded when Jesus looked up in the sycamore tree and said, "Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today."
Others in the crowd grumbled because Jesus chose to go to the house of someone they considered a sinner and a rogue. They could find no common ground with Zacchaeus, and they judged him for his obvious faults. But Zacchaeus, at the Lord's invitation, was more than willing to become a part of the community of believers, even though his self-righteous neighbors wished to exclude him. He promised the Lord to give half of all he had to the poor and to make reparation to those he had harmed. Jesus has the final word for anyone who thinks he or she is better behaved and more worthy of the kingdom than someone else: "Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and save the lost."
I fear there are too many old stories and bad jokes about St. Peter standing at the pearly gates and barring the entrance to heaven. That kind of expectation has all of us casting judgment on ourselves and on each other, deciding who is good and who is bad, who will make it into the kingdom and who will not. Truly, judging is not and has never been our job, and we can give thanks for that. How grateful should we be for the wideness of God's mercy that forgives us seventy times seven!
As former Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church Edmond Browning wrote: "The church is a group of people united in gratitude to God for the redemption of the whole creation from the decay of sin and death, not an elaborate set of reasons why I am saved and you are not...What will we be asked when we stand before God? Were you right all the time? Do you qualify for membership? That is not my image of God's judgment. I think we will be asked if we loved God and tried to show it in the things we did." Bishop Browning is really speaking of the greatest and most simple commandment, the one the Lord told us was the only one we need to remember. "Love the Lord your God with your whole heart and love your neighbor as yourself."
Like the community of duck fanciers who pass by the Dell Pond, the church is a place where the common cause of love is the bond that unites us all. And like the ducks themselves, we are better off when we stick together.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
A Meditation on the Cross
Homily for Sunday, August 29th
5th Sunday at Graves Chapel
Lessons for Holy Cross Day
The history of the cross itself is a history of transfiguration. As that favorite hymn "The Old Rugged Cross" says, the cross is "the emblem of suffering and shame." Death on the cross was meant to be humiliating, torturously slow, and excruciatingly painful. Inflicted on humanity for a thousand years, crucifixion was used as a means of execution from the 6th century BC until the 4th century AD, when the Roman Emperor Constantine, the first Christian Emperor, finally ended its use.
During those many years between the crucifixion of Jesus and the end of the terrible practice, other Christians were martyred on a cross. Of the apostles, Peter and Andrew were both crucified. Peter told his executioners that he was unworthy to be killed in the same way as His Lord, so he was crucified upside down. Dying in the name of Christ for one's faith became an honored tradition.
Nowadays the cross is ubiquitous. You can see crosses just about anywhere: dangling from ears or hanging on a chain around someone's neck, advertising Christian bookstores or planted in a group of three by the roadside. I have several crosses that I proudly wear as jewelry, but that use is not what I meant when I said the cross has its own history of transfiguration.
Think of the crosses you've seen. There are the simple ones, like the plain old wooden cross hanging above the pulpit here in the chapel. And there are beautiful ones, like the lovely one inlaid in the center of the chapel floor by Tom Pastore. Catholic crucifixes come in various shapes and sizes, but they all have a figure of the crucified Christ attached to them. Altars in most churches are adorned with stately brass crosses. No matter their shape, size, or appearance, all Christian crosses commemorate the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.
One of my favorite altar crosses is the one in the chapel at Richmond Hill. It is a brass cross, very similar to ours here. What makes it special to me is the way it is decorated. The engraving is not immediately obvious; only when the light in the chapel illumines it from a certain angle can you see the flowers that adorn the entire cross. I can't see it without thinking of Easter morning and of the flowering of the cross, of the joy of children as they bring spring flowers from their gardens to drape on a rustic wooden frame. The tradition of flowering the cross is for me the most profound illustration of Easter. From the humiliation, shame and agony of Good Friday, the cross is transfigured into a thing of hope, joy, and glorious beauty. Only Jesus himself could have wrought such a change.
As the collect for Holy Cross Day says, " our Savior Jesus Christ was lifted high upon the cross that he might draw the whole world to himself. Mercifully grant that we, who glory in the mystery of our redemption, may have grace to take up our cross and follow him." We all have a cross to bear, of one kind or another. Let us see the beauty of every cross we encounter as a reminder that our own pains, however awful they may be, can be transfigured by the grace of our Lord.
5th Sunday at Graves Chapel
Lessons for Holy Cross Day
The history of the cross itself is a history of transfiguration. As that favorite hymn "The Old Rugged Cross" says, the cross is "the emblem of suffering and shame." Death on the cross was meant to be humiliating, torturously slow, and excruciatingly painful. Inflicted on humanity for a thousand years, crucifixion was used as a means of execution from the 6th century BC until the 4th century AD, when the Roman Emperor Constantine, the first Christian Emperor, finally ended its use.
During those many years between the crucifixion of Jesus and the end of the terrible practice, other Christians were martyred on a cross. Of the apostles, Peter and Andrew were both crucified. Peter told his executioners that he was unworthy to be killed in the same way as His Lord, so he was crucified upside down. Dying in the name of Christ for one's faith became an honored tradition.
Nowadays the cross is ubiquitous. You can see crosses just about anywhere: dangling from ears or hanging on a chain around someone's neck, advertising Christian bookstores or planted in a group of three by the roadside. I have several crosses that I proudly wear as jewelry, but that use is not what I meant when I said the cross has its own history of transfiguration.
Think of the crosses you've seen. There are the simple ones, like the plain old wooden cross hanging above the pulpit here in the chapel. And there are beautiful ones, like the lovely one inlaid in the center of the chapel floor by Tom Pastore. Catholic crucifixes come in various shapes and sizes, but they all have a figure of the crucified Christ attached to them. Altars in most churches are adorned with stately brass crosses. No matter their shape, size, or appearance, all Christian crosses commemorate the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.
One of my favorite altar crosses is the one in the chapel at Richmond Hill. It is a brass cross, very similar to ours here. What makes it special to me is the way it is decorated. The engraving is not immediately obvious; only when the light in the chapel illumines it from a certain angle can you see the flowers that adorn the entire cross. I can't see it without thinking of Easter morning and of the flowering of the cross, of the joy of children as they bring spring flowers from their gardens to drape on a rustic wooden frame. The tradition of flowering the cross is for me the most profound illustration of Easter. From the humiliation, shame and agony of Good Friday, the cross is transfigured into a thing of hope, joy, and glorious beauty. Only Jesus himself could have wrought such a change.
As the collect for Holy Cross Day says, " our Savior Jesus Christ was lifted high upon the cross that he might draw the whole world to himself. Mercifully grant that we, who glory in the mystery of our redemption, may have grace to take up our cross and follow him." We all have a cross to bear, of one kind or another. Let us see the beauty of every cross we encounter as a reminder that our own pains, however awful they may be, can be transfigured by the grace of our Lord.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
What Is Prayer?
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.
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.
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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