HOMILY: "Isn't It Up to Us?'

A Meditation on Mark 10:17-31
Sunday, October 13, 2024

1.

“Each time you eat this bread,” Jesus says at the table. “Each time you eat this bread, do so in remembrance of me.” Communion, then, requires an act of communal imagination. We come to Jesus’ table to remember him as he was then and perceive him as he is for us, and in the world now. Who is this Advocate who chooses to stand with the maligned and misunderstood? Who is this Martyr who invites God’s forgiveness even and especially on the very ones who mock and maim him? Who is this Fisher of men, women, children, souls: who invites the willing to a journey of uncompromising mercy and relentless loving?

Communion, you see, is both sacrament and invitation, eucharist and altar call. It’s both a sign of Christ’s presence and a choice we make to see him now, to hear him out, to follow his lead. It’s a sacrament because it’s a mystery, a gift, and beyond our control. It’s an altar call because it requires discernment and discipleship. “Each time you eat this bread,” Jesus says at the table, “do so in remembrance of me.” At his table, we are collaborators and friends, imagining and remembering his brokenness and his mercy, his death and his resurrection.

In our communion liturgy this morning—written by my friend, Sara Ofner-Seals—we are deliberate in remembering Jesus and discerning his presence in the midst of the violence that has swallowed Israel and Gaza whole over the past year. The kidnapped Christ. The traumatized Christ. The child Christ in Gaza shot through the head by Israeli snipers. The mother Christ who’s been buried in rubble thousands of times over. In her liturgy, Sara writes: “We mourn that this week marks one year since the devastating events of October 2023, when twelve hundred of our Jewish siblings were killed. We mourn that it also marks 365 days of relentless death and destruction in Gaza, with over 40,000 of our Palestinian siblings killed, nearly 20,000 of them children…” On this World Communion Sunday, we remember that the One who is broken is broken not in the abstractions of theological arguments, not in the poetry of ancient hymns—but in the bodies of thousands in our own time, in the suffering of children, in all those crucified by swords, handguns, assault weapons, exploding cell phones and fighter planes delivering missiles made right here, in American companies by American hands.

And somehow it is God’s intention, and it is our Christian task, to discern the presence of Jesus in the midst of these unconscionable hostilities and unimaginable losses. And let’s be clear. Christian faith shows no interest at all in nationality or national identity. These categories confer no particular blessing on one people or another. Jesus refuses at every turn to wrap his human body in one flag or another. Instead we must bravely, compassionately discern his ways in the midst of human suffering, in the cacophony of violence, and in the fog of war. All suffering, all violence, and all war.

Where is the one who counsels God’s people to love their enemies, to turn the other cheek, to put down their swords and study war no more? This is the question we ask, of one another, at the table and in prayer. Where is the one whose love is so unshakeable that he welcomes blow after blow after blow—rather than turning his own rage (justifiably, perhaps) on the high priests and foot soldiers who mindlessly punish him? If cheap grace treats Jesus as a generalized ideal, costly grace insists on finding Jesus in flesh-and-blood communities and the conflicts that tear them apart. If cheap grace says turn the other cheek whenever you can, whenever it makes sense, costly grace finds in Jesus another way of life entirely—a way shaped by nonviolence and lovingkindness though it brings us to our knees; a way devoted to peace even when it risks our reputation, our sense of balance, even our way of life. The gospel, my friends, is in no way cheap and convenient grace. The gospel is life and liberation, and costly grace: good news made plain in radical generosity and mercy.

2.

In a sense, the fellow who runs up to Jesus, in our text this morning, is looking for reassurance and comfort. Some measure of grace. “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” And who can blame him? If he’s living through a season of Orwellian anxieties. If he’s living through another cycle of MAGA madness. If he’s unnerved by his own sense of powerlessness, maybe even his own sense of guilt or shame. “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” There’s a version of Christianity, as we know, that reduces the entire gospel to just this. It asks only for acquiescence and requires no imagination. It demands fealty to creed and orthodoxy, but encourages no discernment at all. Say the right words. Join the right church. Sing the right songs. “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” You go to his table to be reassured. Safe. Saved.

So that seems to be this fellow in the story, where he’s coming from, the angst in his heart.

And it’s so telling, so sweet and so telling, that Jesus looks at him, that Jesus sees him and acknowledges him, and that Jesus loves him. Indeed, that may be the whole point of this story, the lead buried in the first paragraph. Jesus looks at the dear fellow, the sincerity in his eyes, and Jesus loves him. Recognizes him. This story is in no way intended to shame this fellow, or us. That’s not the point. It’s in no way passed down through the ages to mark him as unloveable or beyond the reach of mercy and grace. Of this, my friends, there is no doubt: that Jesus has profound compassion, even infinite love, for those who are anxious and burdened by fear. For those overwhelmed by their own experience, or better their own perception of powerlessness and shame.

But still, the invitation that follows is costly and hard. Sell what you own, give to the poor, and then come, and find me. Then come, and follow me. “It is easier,” Jesus says to his friends, and somehow to the church in every generation; “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

The point, I think, of Mark’s gospel is this. That Jesus is embodied, that God is embodied, that the Divine is embodied in human communities, in suffering communities, in the very real bodies of the hungry, the detained and dismissed, the invisible and ignored, wherever and everywhere they are. Following Jesus has something to do with leaving privilege behind, leaving security behind, leaving wealth behind, to practice peace and mercy with Jesus, and then to seek honor and safety for Jesus. Where he suffers. Where he hungers. Where he wanders bombed-out cities and scorched-earth farms and flooded plains.

I have to believe that Jesus holds out hope for the fellow who goes away grieving. I have to believe that Jesus prays for him every day after, trusting, even believing that some seed has been planted in his heart, that some nagging faith will bring him back again. To follow in joy. To join the beloved community. To step into the suffering, and side with the poor, and protect the victims of genocide, hatred and war. Because it’s not in Jesus’ DNA to give up. On anyone. And that’s why, all these thousands of years later, we’re still reading this story.

GRIEVING: "The Innocents"

HOMILY: "Mwen Avek Ou Nan Difikilte Yo"

The 1st Sunday in a Season of Incarnation

A Meditation on John 1
Sunday, October 6, 2024

1.

Springfield, Ohio, 2024

A couple of weeks ago, on a warm Sunday afternoon in Springfield, Ohio, a weekly class for English Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) gathered as they usually do at the First Evangelical Haitian Church. It’s an important opportunity, obviously, for Haitian refugees, new arrivals making a strange start in a strange city at a strange time. And very often, most weeks, organizers struggle to find enough English speakers to adequately serve as conversation partners for their new neighbors.

But life has changed in Springfield, Ohio.

And earlier that particular morning, in churches across the city, preachers had promoted that day’s class and urged English-speaking congregants to consider volunteering their time, presence and patience, at a moment when the Haitian community in Springfield—from very small children to their very old housemates—were being bombarded with threats, hatred and cruelty in their homes, neighborhoods and schools.

And because they did, because those preachers preached a gospel of love that morning, and because they made that gospel of love explicit (like “SHOW UP THIS AFTERNOON” explicit)—thirty new volunteers stepped up that Sunday, thirty new volunteers joined in conversation, pitched in, made new friends, and even learned some new words and phrases in Haitian Creole. And in the process, ESOL students, ESOL teachers, new volunteers; the whole lot of them imagined together a better and (I’d say) a more American kind of city. That kind of thing can happen when we simply and faithfully show up. Just show up. For one another.

That afternoon, at the First Evangelical Haitian Church, teachers started with just one sentence, in English. “I am with you in the difficulties.” Given the threats of the weeks prior, it seemed like the place to begin. So they invited the whole room to practice that one simple sentence: “I am with you in the difficulties.”

And then, just as importantly, and just as beautifully, they taught the same sentence to their English-speaking volunteers in Haitian Creole, the native language of so many new arrivals in Springfield: “Mwen avèk ou nan difikilte yo.” “Mwen avèk ou nan difikilte yo.” I am with you in the present difficulties. One teacher said later that, when they all repeated that one sentence in Creole, a second, a third, then a fourth time, she noticed two older volunteers putting their hands to their hearts. “It was as if,” she said, “the words themselves were rearranging the chambers and arteries of their own hearts.” “Mwen avèk ou nan difikilte yo.” I am with you in the difficulties. There are words sometimes, the right words, that can turn strangers into friends, gatherings into communities. Rearranging the chambers and arteries of our hearts. And that’s what happened at the First Evangelical Haitian Church on Sunday afternoon, just a couple of weeks ago.

And, you know, that’s what brotherhood, sisterhood; that’s what citizenship looks like in Springfield, Ohio these days. And with a grateful nod to Springfield’s preachers—who turned out their people for a ‘come-to-jesus’ moment in their city—that’s what it means to embrace the vocation of a ‘beloved community’ across our fractured American landscape. We call such moments ‘kairos’ moments—decisive moments in which the gospel is either embraced or rejected, transparent moments in which what we believe is almost literally laid bare for the world to see. Does the Jesus you love justify indifference? Or does the Jesus you love insist on compassion and solidarity? “Mwen avèk ou nan difikilte yo,” they said to one another. Several with hands pressed upon their hearts. “I am with you in the difficulties.” A kairos moment for sure.

In a sense, that whole room in Springfield was full of refugees: Haitians, to be sure, fleeing unimaginable violence and grinding poverty at home; but Springfield’s old-timers too, fleeing the madness of a political party that scapegoats immigrants and trades in racist and xenophobic tropes. They were refugees, one and all! Learning new languages of love and support, risking new words together, new relationships across cultures, new visions of America. “Mwen avèk ou nan difikilte yo.” I am with you in the difficulties.

2.

The language of John’s prologue—which we’ve read today—is not terribly tame; the poetry isn’t too modest. But it is beautiful, I think we can agree. And it is designed to provoke and inspire:

Before time itself was measured, the Voice was speaking.
The Voice was and is God.
This celestial Word remained ever present with the Creator;
His speech shaped the entire cosmos.
Immersed in the practice of creating,
All things that exist were birthed in Him.
His breath filled all things
With a living, breathing light—
A light that thrives in the depths of darkness,
Blazes through murky bottoms.
It cannot and will not be quenched.

“Immersed in the practice of creating / All things that exist were birthed in Him.” To take seriously this one life—Jesus’ life—is to experience the connectivity, the interdependence of all things, all lives.  And the love, the grace that makes us whole.

In Jesus, Christians have long seen both an ordinary human being, with ordinary limitations and ordinary dreams, and a Divine Light—“a light that thrives in the depths of darkness, blazes through murky bottoms, a light that cannot and will not be quenched.” Jesus: ordinary human being and savior of the cosmos.

This alone is a conundrum that bewilders believers and non-believers alike. I imagine a good many of us here have struggled with it. How is it that a solitary human being—who lived thousands of years ago in a remarkably unremarkable land—is invested with the breath that fills all things, animates all things, coheres in all things? How is it that his word, his teaching, his song shapes the entire cosmos, every emerging landscape, every evolving species, every generation, every particle and every people? In a sense, these are the questions John’s Gospel wants us to ask, insists that we ask and explore and ponder together. “We have seen Him,” we read here, “enveloped in undeniable splendor—the one true Son of the Great I Am.” Begs the question. Can we, should we invest that kind of reverence, that kind of honor, that kind of belief in a single Palestinian Jew from the Galilean hills in the first century? I’m quite sure John doesn’t intend that we swallow this bit whole—but seeks instead a community of curiosity and faith that wonders together, and suffers together, and leans into the presence and promise of Jesus together. Not as an end point—but as a lifelong journey.

And that’s why, when the two seekers in today’s text are hanging around, when they’re showing signs of interest and maybe even pangs of spiritual desire in his presence, Jesus doesn’t say: “Believe in me.” No. He says, “Come and see.” He says, “Come and see. Follow Me, and we will camp together.” I love this new translation—maybe it’s just a rephrasing—of the ancient Greek original. “Come and see,” Jesus says. “Follow Me, and we will camp together.” The faith he’s offering us, you see, isn’t doctrinal and bossy, as if he only need convince us of a few particular beliefs (virgin birth, substitutionary atonement, transubstantiation, maybe); as if we only need download what he thinks about God and the world onto our hard drives. And then the work is done.

No, the life Jesus is extending is communal; the faith, it’s shared. John’s Gospel is about a community of friends who go to weddings together, grieve deep losses together, and feed the hungry and forgotten together; John’s Gospel is about a community of friends who learn to speak honest, painful truths about their real and precious lives, who develop the kind of tenderness and forbearance needed to survive tremendous suffering and gruesome violence; John’s Gospel is about a community of friends who come to embrace faith through their daily practices of praying for one another, eating simply and gratefully together, seeking out the scapegoated and protecting the outcasts. Camping out together. With Jesus. And the willing.

3.

Yesterday, with some of you and a neighborhood of friends, Kate and I celebrated our friend and fellow member Hannah Earle with brownies for her 40th birthday. There were no prayers, no hymns, no liturgies—though I have to say brownies make for a mighty tasty communion. It was a beautiful, bright New England afternoon, and a bittersweet gathering of dear, dear friends. Cancer, mortality, death: on our minds and in our hearts. Tears in so many eyes. All of us aware of how fleeting these moments are right now, and how few may be left. For Hannah, dear, beloved Hannah. But there was also grace on the lawn, and there was love, and there was a spirit of persevering kindness—genuine and honest: one friend after another kneeling by Hannah’s side to hold her hand and look her in the eye and invoke the deepest, truest love there is. She’s exhausted by another week in the hospital—and glad to be home this weekend. And when we parted, she hoisted herself—with great effort—from her lawn chair to give me a hug. A hug that said: I know you are with me. I know my church is with me. Hugs like that go a long way toward making all the rest of this make sense to me.

DEAR SENATOR: "For an Immediate Arms Embargo"

Below is a letter I sent this evening, in support of the Joint Resolutions of Disapproval introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders and supported by others in the U.S. Senate.  I sent similar letters to my two senators, Senators Hassan and Shaheen of New Hampshire.  And I'm urging friends to send similar notes (LINK HERE) to their own U.S. senators.  The time is now.

DGJ

Monday, September 30, 2024

Dear Senator Hassan,

I’m writing this evening to urge your support for the Joint Resolutions of Disapproval introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders (see remarks here) and ask that you call for an immediate embargo on arms sales to Israel.  

As Israel’s bombing of Gaza continues, as it escalates its attacks in other arenas and invades Lebanon, I join a majority of Americans (and citizens of New Hampshire) who support a permanent ceasefire, hostage exchange, and an arms embargo to get us there.  The time is now for moral, principled, brave leadership in the Senate.   Please add your name to those of Senators Sanders, Welch and Merkley in support of S.J. Res. 111, 112, 113, 114, 115 and 116, to block $20 billion in weapons for Israel’s military.

There is no question—among legal scholars, international observers and human rights advocates—that U.S. transfers to Israel of lethal technology and weaponry are in direct violation of U.S. and international law.  In using such arms to continue a decades-long occupation and now to prosecute a regional war on a multitude of fronts, Israel is not only betraying U.S. commitments to human rights and diplomacy, but shattering its own democratic aspirations as well.  With these Joint Resolutions, you and your colleagues can once again center American values in a world where these are understandably questioned and reasonably doubted.  

May 10, 2024 (Dover)

Last Spring, with four other colleagues, I participated in a nonviolent act of civil disobedience here in Dover, at the office of Congressman Pappas.  For months activists and people of faith had urged the congressman to meet with us and reconsider his numerous votes in support of arms sales and lethal support for Israel’s devastating bombardment in Gaza.  He's shown no interest in doing so.  Again, our concern continues to focus on legitimate and God-given human rights—for Palestinians and Israelis alike—and for American choices that honor the democratic aspirations of Palestinian communities and Israeli communities too.  For Congress to brazenly defy U.S. law in sending weapons in support of an illegal and immoral occupation, and now an illegal and horrific genocide in Gaza, is unconscionable and undemocratic.  For Congress to defy international law is just plain wrong, and invites legitimate criticism of American hypocrisy.  In this way, surely, we are weakened internationally.

I did not relish the action that resulted in our arrest last May.  I had then, and continue to serve now, a busy congregation in Durham with a wonderful variety of ministries, programs and needs.  But our own United Church of Christ’s General Synod has identified Israel’s decades-long occupation as a form of apartheid (2021).  And Congress’ inability to confront Israel’s violence, and its complicity in funding the destruction of Gazan families and communities required me to act (in peaceful collaboration with friends) urgently and thoughtfully to encourage conversation (among our neighbors) and change in the ways Congress addresses the issue.  Indeed, I’m grateful for the conversation that’s expanding across our state, and the diverse community of activists urging our delegation to move more boldly in support of an arms embargo and American integrity in the Middle East.

With Issa Amro in Hebron, 2017

All of which to say, this is important business.  It is for those of you who consider resolutions, and policy, and then cast votes.  It is as well for those of us who have traveled in the Middle East; who are proponents of human rights and nonviolent democratic efforts in Israel and Palestine; and whose churches, mosques and synagogues have beloved partners in the region.  Partners who seek to live and thrive together, and create a multicultural community, a multicultural democracy for future generations.  

So again, on behalf of Palestinian and Israeli friends and peacemakers, in solidarity with Jewish activists and so many others here in New Hampshire, and with my larger United Church of Christ community, I urge you, Senator Hassan, to move boldly and bravely to support the Joint Resolutions of Disapproval introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders and call for an immediate embargo on arms sales to Israel.  The time is now.

In gratitude for your service,

The Rev. David C. Grishaw-Jones

HOMILY: "Losing Our Smallness"

Psalm 149

Reimagined by Julia Jean in Psalms in Ordinary Voices

Give praise to the Goddess within and without.

Sing unto our Lady a new song

for we shall praise Her with our very presence.

Let the Universe rejoice in Her creations.

Let Her children be joyful as we praise Her names in the Great Dance.

We will play our heart drums and soul strings.

We will pluck the sinews of our skeletons.

We will merge in the Great Rite with equanimity and freedom

in our stomping feet.

For She takes pleasure in Her devotees.

She clothes us in Her radiant jewel strength.

All acts of love and pleasure are Her rituals.

We are joyful in Her glory.

We sing to Her in our beds, our lovemaking in Her honor.

We rejoice in Her edgeless luminosity.

We chant Her names in our waking and our sleeping,

in our nakedness, fertility and death.

We lift Her praises as we whisper, sing, talk, eat, and kiss.

May She enter us with every breath, every motion, and every movement.

May our egos be sacrificed so we know each other more deeply

through her wild compassion.

We humble ourselves so we may know the Truth

and be released from the chains and fetters of illusion.

Then, the glistening radiance of Her wisdom will take us over completely.

When we surrender completely—in Truth—we lose only our smallness,

  not our power or our glory.

We step into Her:  She of 108 names, 1008 names.

We become One.

We honorably install You in our hearts so that we might know

the deepest truths, so that we might know ourselves as others,

And realize the blazing fires of the non-duality of all existence

and non-existence.

"Losing Our Smallness"

A Meditation on Psalm 149 (Reimagined)
DGJ / Sunday, September 29, 2024

For the Fifth Sunday in Creationtide

1.

It may just be that the deepest truth of all, the most dizzying truth of all, the most liberating truth of all—is right there in your hands. Literally. Inscribed right there in your hands. Weathered by years of hard work, maybe. Toughened by a summer in the garden, maybe. Shaken by worry for a world on the edge, maybe. Even so, it may just be that the deepest truth of all is inscribed, etched, carved right there into your two hands.

So do this for me. Take a moment this morning to trace the veins in your own palms. You’re going to have to set your bulletin aside. Pick a hand. Pick a palm. I’m using my left hand, and my right forefinger to do the tracing.

Just trace those veins, your veins. A few are like valleys, diving from one side to another. Others are like tributaries, branching off one valley or another, doing their own thing. Little wrinkles flowing hither and yon. Follow them around. Go where they lead you.

I want to suggest this morning that all those valleys and tributaries, in your hand, in your palm, are something like a sacred text, embodied scripture, maybe even a palm psalm. You’ve got chapter and verse right there in your flesh. Get it? A palm psalm? And within that sacred text, your sacred text, there is a universe of ancestors, a road map of migrations, and the unmistakable creativity of the Divine—who was long at work in your life before you had a life, who was forever involved in your becoming before you became anything at all. You can do this anytime you like, by the way. Doesn’t have to be at church on Sundays. Trace the veins in your own palms. Read the sacred text there.

There is nothing else, absolutely nothing else you have to do, to please and praise the Maker of all things, the Weaver of all fabrics, the Goddess who made you wonderful and whole. Just be with all this. Just trace the landscape of your life. Just wander the valleys, the tributaries of your own hand. Here’s where Julia Jenn is so provocatively right, so delightfully simple, in her reimagining of the 149th psalm:

Give praise to the Goddess within and without.
Sing unto our Lady a new song
for we shall praise Her with our very presence.

WITH OUR VERY PRESENCE!

Just this: with your very presence! The Goddess’ Gospel, the Gospel of love, is right there in your hand! And all you have to do is touch. And all you have to do is trace. And all you have to do is praise Her with your presence. As you are. Who you are. Because you are. You can praise Her with your very presence because She’s the source of every breath you take. You can praise Her with your presence because She’s the desire that conceived and delivered and raised you up. You can praise Her with your presence because—as you are, just as you are—you are made in Her image. Surrender to that: and you’ve stepped into the greatest mystery there is. Your life.

So I discovered Julia Jean’s reimagined psalm (the psalm Amy’s read for us this morning) in a book called Psalms in Ordinary Voices—a collection inspired and then gathered into one by a couple of pastors in the Berkshires. They’d asked a diverse community of friends—social workers, teachers, therapists, farmworkers, mechanics, Hospice chaplains, grandparents, new moms and more—to read, read, read the psalms, and then to take one and rewrite it for their own voice, their own spiritual practice, their own community. And Julia Jean came up with the 149th.

Give praise to the Goddess within and without.
Sing unto our Lady a new song
for we shall praise Her with our very presence.

And I believe that Julia Jean gets this just right. Her version of the 149th psalm. If God is Creator, if God is ever and always creating, if the Goddess is intimately involved in creation’s endlessly fascinating and forever unpredictable patterns of ecstasy, emergence and evolution, isn’t it wild, isn’t it wonderful, isn’t it wonderfully wild that She makes the human being in Her own image? As God yearns for communion, we yearn for communion and connection. As She rejoices in us, and in all that is and ever will be, we rejoice in Her and in one another and in all that is and ever will be.

And we are designed, created, put together, friends, to do just this: to play our heart drums and soul strings / to pluck the sinews of our skeletons / to merge in the Great Rite with equanimity and freedom in our stomping feet.

I mean, seriously, friends! “Play your heart drums and soul strings!” “Pluck the sinews of your skeletons!” “Merge in the Great Rite with freedom in your stomping feet!” Freedom in your stomping feet! Go ahead, stomp your feet a few times. You can do it. Right here in church! You can do it. That’s you, that’s you and me, that’s us—merging in the Great Rite with equanimity and freedom. No theological cartwheels necessary. No longwinded exhortations needed. Reading scripture written upon our own two hands. Merging in the Great Rite on our own two feet. It’s as simple and as human as that.

Whoever you are, whatever your age, whatever your language, whatever burdens you bear—you are designed to play your heart drums and soul strings; you are made to pluck the sinews of your skeletons. Created in the image of God, but not only that. Created to praise Her with your very presence. With your very presence. So, says Julia Jean:

Let the Universe rejoice in Her creations.
Let Her children be joyful as we praise
Her names in the Great Dance.

2.

It’s our hope that this fall’s Season of Creationtide will inspire a renewed ministry of creation spirituality and ecological activism right here in our church. Going back many years, of course, we have championed eco-justice in important ways, and through varied initiatives. In a sense, it’s in our congregational DNA. Of late, several of you have wondered about reviving this ministry, reimagining a Greening Team, finding new ways to animate earth care and ecological fidelity in and beyond the church. See me, if you’re interested in joining this new (or renewed) effort. I’d like us to get together soon…to see what’s possible for us now.

In Julia Jean’s psalm, I’m struck by the spiritual side of the task that lies before us—as a church, and as a culture too. Does this seem right to you? What’s required of us involves concrete action, of course, and particular initiatives of care and protection for particular places, particular systems of forest and field, sea and sky. But our ministry has to address the soul’s desire, the spirit’s calling, and the spiritual path that offers true conversion, human transformation and lasting hope. “May our egos be sacrificed,” she writes. May our egos be sacrificed so we know each other more deeply through Her wild compassion / May we humble ourselves so we may know the Truth and be released from the chains and fetters of illusion / Then, the glistening radiance of Her wisdom will take us over completely.

HUMAN RIGHTS: "For Everyone!"

 

HOMILY: "Living Tov!"

A Meditation on Communion
Sunday, September 22, 2024
Exodus 16 (4th Sunday in Creationtide)

1.

Cody Miller, "Manna"

The Hebrew word “tov” is most often translated, in English anyway, as “good.” As in: God created all that is, and God took a long, loving look at all of it, and God called it “tov” or God called it “good.” And that’s lovely enough. But “tov”—the Hebrew word “tov”—is so much more ebullient than just “good,” so much more zesty than just “good.” It’s better translated as “delightful” or “incredible” or even (and I love this) “fat with wonder.” Fat with wonder! God created all that is, and took a long, loving look at all of it, and God called it “tov.”

Think about adjectives you’d whisper watching a September sunset over the Great Bay, or a mighty grey whale breaching on the Atlantic, or a bull moose crossing a two-lane country road, or a butterfly breaking free of its cocoon in your own backyard. God calls all that God makes “delightful,” and God calls it “incredible,” and God calls it “fat with wonder” and “gorgeous” and “soul-stirring” and “enough.” “Enough!” Always, enough!

That’s “tov.” All of that. And really, to bring it home this morning, that’s Creationtide. What this whole season’s about. To believe in a God who creates, to believe in a Creator who invites humanity to live well and justly upon the earth—to believe isn’t to ascribe to any particular theory of how it all went down, or how long it takes to create a continent or a mountain range or a species of frogs in the rainforest. To believe in a God who creates is to delight with God in all God is doing, and to revel with God in the mysteries and surprises of it all, and to organize our communities in ways that allow all creation and all our neighbors to share in the nourishment and wonder and goodness God intends.

So—when God rests on the seventh day of creation—you remember this part in Genesis: when God rests in the midst of all that’s “tov” and all that’s “incredible” and “delightful” and “fat with wonder,” when God rests—we are invited to do the same. Every seventh day. Every Sabbath day. And the point of our resting is that we take time, and we create rituals, and we call together friends, and we set our hearts on all that’s incredible and delightful and fat-with-wonder. Because it’s all God’s. Every leaf of every tree. Every seed in every field. Every beach on every shore. Every ant hill and every zucchini vine and every dribbling stream. It’s all God’s and it’s all “tov.” We rest simply and always to remember. It’s all God’s and it’s all “tov.”

(And parenthetically, not to rest every seventh day is to risk forgetting. Not to practice “Sabbath rest” is to risk forgetting all this “tov-ness,” and then adjusting to a version of the world that is reduced to stock prices, market shares, economic anxiety and the betting line on this afternoon’s football game. In so many ways, the Sabbath sits at the heart of Jewish and Christian spirituality and ethics.)

2.

And this morning’s story, then, expands on Sabbath spirituality to offer “instructions” in receiving the gifts of creation, and living humbly, faithfully, justly in the midst of earth’s wonders and bounty; “instructions” in receiving the gifts of creation, and depending gladly on the land. Not as a possession to hoard. Not as a resource to exploit. Not even as a homeland to defend. But as a gift, and as a blessing, and as a sacrament to be shared. “I will test the people,” says God, making this as clear as clear can be. “I will test the people, whether they will follow my instructions or not.” So yes, we’re again in the realm of metaphor; but this metaphor matters.  A lot.

This is Torah, of course, the heart of Jewish tradition and teaching, and the wisdom (by the way) suffusing Jesus’ own ministry. There is both gift and gospel in this tradition, and instruction as well. We are tested. If that first creation story in Genesis sets the stage for Sabbath spirituality, this wilderness story (this manna metaphor) in Exodus puts a finer point on Sabbath practice and community care and even economic discipline. Sabbath isn’t just a sweet way of organizing our work week; it’s an invitation to moderation, equity and a radically generous sharing of resources, harvests and food.

So remember the story, the context of the Hebrews’ journey out of Egypt, out of slavery, and into the wilderness and the future promised by God. They have—as a people—fled from the oppressive Egyptian economy in which they were enslaved and impoverished and compelled to build huge warehouses for the Pharaoh’s wealth, accumulated assets and greed. They have cried out of their suffering in Egypt and their many cries have been heard by God; their impoverishment has been felt by God. And in God’s mercy, by God’s mercy, Moses and Miriam have led the Hebrews out of this misery, and through the Red Sea, and into a wilderness of opportunity, promise and new possibilities.

And still, embracing that promise means unlearning Egyptian habits. Seizing new opportunities and possibilities means discovering God’s alternative to Pharaoh’s economy of accumulation and oppression. And that’s the hard part. Not only for the Hebrews, it turns out. But for us all.

So the manna from heaven in this morning’s story is a kind of test to see if the Hebrews are ready to follow God’s instructions; a kind of test to see if they’re ready to embrace an alternative, to see if they’re prepared to practice the goodness of God (or the “tov”-ness of God) in their life together, in a new economy of grace and liberation. It’s not a given. It turns out that it’s not a given. There are those who pine for Egypt, for their familiar place in a world with no Sabbaths at all. Have they so internalized the Pharaoh’s culture of consumerism and consumption that they will turn now and go back? Or are they open at last to the radically generous God whose radically bountiful earth is always able to nourish the radically faithful community?

MUSIC: "Enclosed By You" (Liz Vice)

HOMILY: "Come Away With Me"

The 2nd Sunday in Creationtide

Sunday, September 8, 2024

Song of Songs 2:8-13 

1.

I had two intentions this summer, the whole summer really, but especially my month-long August vacation.  The first was to read a handful of novels I’d been collecting for most of a year.  And the second was to recommit to a daily practice of centering prayer, 20 minutes of silent prayer in the morning, and 20 minutes again in the evening.  I’m reminded of the simple teaching of the great teacher Thich Nhat Hanh—who once said: “Many of us have been running all our lives.  Practice stopping.”  Just that: “Many of us have been running all our lives.  Practice stopping.”  My hope this summer was to ‘practice stopping.’  And these two practices, reading novels and centering prayer, do so much to slow me down, sometimes even way down—reawakening in me the gifts of stillness and imagination, softening the edges of my mind’s rush to judgment, and emptying my analytic self of so many assumptions and Dave GJ notions.  No small task, that.

So these were my intentions all summer long: to read some novels and revive my centering prayer practice.  And for the most part, I made good on those intentions.  It was a good summer for me.

So one morning, about two weeks ago, I set out in a little red kayak on the ever-so-still waters of a favorite Maine lake.  And I was frankly kind of full of myself, satisfied with these two daily practices, and the calm and balanced spirit with which I paddled across the protected bay in front of our cabin.  I’d even left my phone on shore!  At the time I was deep into a spectacularly inspired novel by one of my all-time favorite writers, David James Duncan; and his story is, in part, a meditation on the unity of human spirit and created world, the wholeness and liberation we discover in and among the geographies of our lives.  The novel’s called “Sun House”—and I have it right here.  Can’t recommend it highly enough.

So as I paddled across the bay, I marveled at a flock of geese flapping in the reeds along the shoreline, then lifting off, and then winging in formation overhead.  And I felt less like an observer than a participant in their timeless migration, less like a sightseer than a kind of wild goose myself, following the instincts and desires of my own soul.  Paddling the still waters.  The late summer sun, like the Light of Christ, everywhere around me.  Like I say, it was a good summer for me.

And just then, over my right shoulder, I heard the sweet laughter of a loon, close enough to be along for the ride.  You know the sound, the laughter, the wonder of it.  A song millions of years in the making!  So, of course, I swung my big, no longer calm, nor balanced body around to take a quick look, because that’s what you do—and proceeded to flip my little red kayak, dramatically and totally, upside down.  K-splash!  Which meant, of course, that the paddler was paddling no more, and tossed instead into the loon-loved lake.  Grabbing after my paddle with one hand, reaching with the other for the upside-down kayak with a mind of its own.  And all the while, gasping for embarrassment and surprise. 

I was maybe a hundred yards from shore, and I had no genius ideas about getting my big, no longer calm, no longer balanced body back into the kayak.  So I did what I guess one does when one’s flipped his kayak in a loony lake.  I held on to the paddle, pushed the kayak forward and did my best little froggy kick to get us all back to dry land and a warm towel…and all kinds of humility and breathlessness.  A couple of kids in a motorboat, trailing a line with a happy water-skier, waved and cheered on their way by.  I was frankly relieved they didn’t stop to help.

And about half-way back, I saw just ahead of me another loon—maybe the same one, or maybe an amused friend—floating serenely and worrying about nothing.  And as if on cue, she caught sight of this crazy human being, one with creation, totally united with the lake and all its wonders, and looking about as silly as a human can look, pushing his kayak toward shore.  Like a great white frog.  And she lifted her gorgeous black and white neck into the Maine sky and whelped with joy, laughed with delight, welcoming me home.   Yes, I was embarrassed, a goofy, clumsy sight to see out there, for sure, for sure.  But I found myself laughing with her, the two of us, an unexpected community in the August sun.

2.

So, Creationtide!  A season of celebration, reflection and wonder.  What could it mean for us?  What could it mean for the church?

There is, in the reading this morning, in the Song of Songs, what I might call a “beckoning” spirit, even (some might say) a “seductive” spirit: “Arise, my dearest, and come away with me!”  There’s no question, really, that at some point this was a love song, romantic poetry, maybe even erotic poetry.  “Arise, my dearest, and come away with me!”  For God’s sake, for God’s sake, let’s not over-think this text.  It’s a love song, a duet: lovers responding to one another with delight, and finding in the fields and vineyards of their world a thousand mirrors of their own vitality, their own attraction.  “The flowers are unfolding in the fields; the birds are warming up their songs; the fig trees are bringing forth fruit; and the vines are filling the air with fragrance.”  The heavens are telling the glory of God, and all creation is shouting for joy!  “Arise, my dearest, and come away with me!”  By the way, this is all right there, in your bible!  

Then, too, the Song of Songs—when it’s read here in church, in worship, and especially during our Season of Creationtide—this Song captures a kind of intimate mysticism: the Creator and the created in love, in communion, in relationship.  We might call this “creation spirituality.”  Creation spirituality!  Faith, after all, is organic and relational.  It’s not static and tribal and cocky sure of itself; it’s responsive to birds warming up their songs in tall trees, and to vines filling the air with their fragrance, and to loons singing anthems millions of years in the making.  And when the Beloved says, “Come away with me,” faith goes.  My friend, you are not a cog in some theological machine, or a notch on some evangelist’s salvation belt.  You are the Beloved’s beloved; and you are sought out, you are invited into the world, you are beckoned into awareness and gladness every moment of every minute of every day of your life.  So when the Beloved says, “Come away with me,” you go.  That’s “creation spirituality.”

So the gift of this poetry, the gift of this Song of Songs, is in the poet’s unembarrassed celebration of the community of creation, and all the ways Love (and I’m talking about the One Big Love with the capital L), all the ways Love finds us and claims us and invites us to taste and see and revel in the reality of it all.  Revel in the reality of it all.  The reality of human love, to be sure.  The reality of lakes and loons, to be sure.  The reality of your neighbor’s zucchini and your dog’s happy tail.  The reality of sure-footed gazelles and sunflowers lifting their heads in the fields, and the cooing of the turtle dove and the explosion of fall foliage every October in New England.  

And don’t miss this.  To love it all is to be changed by it all.  To taste and see Love in the midst of it all is to be summoned to new life, to a kind of faithfulness that is well beyond orthodoxy and creed.  This is about mystery and union and the oneness of it all.  To revel in the community of creation is to become the rivers and streams that hydrate our bodies, and to become the fields and gardens that feed our souls, and to become the lakes that swallow us whole when we flip our kayaks on bright summer days.

3.

So the thing is this.  The gospel thing is this: we are not created by God, we are not gifted with a precious span of days and years to merely observe creation; we’re not blessed with breath and body to spend our seasons as sightseers on planet earth.  We are called into communion.  Always, always, communion.  We are invited into circles of loving and blessing and sharing.  We are taken by Love’s hand, summoned by Love’s voice: “Arise, my dearest!  Come away with me!”  And this means devotion and romance.  And this means sacrifice and feasting.  And this means a faith infused with love and shaped by responsibility for the integrity of creation and the life of the planet.  So, Creationtide! And creation spirituality!  Meaning, we are called into communion with fig trees and grape vines, with bee hives and salmon runs, with tiny streams and great bays.  We are called not to rise above creation, as if the whole point is to conquer creation, to subdue it all, and need very little of it for our survival.  No, no, and no again!  We are called to rise for creation, to rise with creation, to rise in courage and resilience and passion as lovers of creation, as friends of creation, as partners in creation.

A POEM: "Mimesis"