All Saints Day Nov 1, 2015

Every All Saints Day I think of a book by William Kennedy called Ironweed.  Originally rejected by numerous publishers it now makes many lists as one of the best novels of the 20th Century.  It's been a long time since I read it back in the 80's actually and I don't remember all of it.   But it still haunts me just like the ghosts that haunted Francis Phelan, the main character.  It is the story of a homeless man running from the demons of his past, from guilt over tragedy he has caused and seeking forgiveness and reconciliation.  The story takes place on Halloween and All Saints Day, as the protagonist moves from facing the ghosts of his past to some version of redemption for himself and reconciliation with his family.  His family is ready to receive him with open arms actually, though he is not quite ready at the end of the story to reclaim his old life.

These two days and tomorrow, All Souls Day, make up a trilogy of days, also known as Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead.  This time is what I call liminal, a threshold, in between time, in which the line between the physical and spiritual world, between life and death, between the living and the dead is very thin.  It is a time to be scared.  I actually went to a scary movie yesterday, and got to pass out candy to all sorts of goblins who showed up at my door.  I haven't been able to do that for some time.  But now that I am housesitting, living in a neighborhood, kids came to my door!  We can think of the sacred, the holy, in this way: thin places, thin times, those moments and objects and places where the line between heaven and earth is porous.  Imbued with profound and significant meaning. When we remember our dead and bring them back to life for just a moment in our memories.

There is a line in the Revelation passage we just read that I have never noticed before, that struck me in a whole new way this time.  The one who was seated on the throne said, "See I make all things new."  Also he said, "Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true."  Then he said to me, "It is done!  I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end."

What struck me is the command to "Write this."  He is speaking to John who is receiving this revelation and commanding him to make sure and get this part down.  That God makes all things new, and that God is the beginning and the end and that, "It is done."

This is all in the present tense, right now, in an eternal now, as TS Eliot describes it: the intersection of time and the timeless, the still point of the turning world.  This moment, this thin place and time in which we are, in our finite, everyday lives, connected to the holy, the eternal, the whole.  We can experience this connection to the whole, this shalom, this peace as we pray.  Lately I have been praying a prayer of Ignatius called the Suscipe.  It ends with "All that I have is yours, do with it as you will.  Give to me only your love and grace, that is enough for me."  As we let go and give ourselves over, it is as if we are floating on a vast sea with no fear, we find ourselves floating in God in whom we live and move and have our being.

I want to follow that command myself and Write this. But I strain of course to know how to write about this.  Much of my writing is filled with worry and anxiety, my journals are full of confession as I wrestle with all sorts of things  and I am continually making the journey in my writing from anxiety to peace.  Much of my daily morning journaling, much of my prayer life is about calming myself down!   This is good stuff, and I do work through lots of stuff that ends up in these sermons eventually.  But I also remember that Donavan song I like from Brother Sun Sister Moon,  "I seldom see you, seldom hear your tune preoccupied with selfish misery." Then it ends with "I now do see you, I can hear your tune so much in love with all that I survey."

Sometimes what happens in my prayer life and my journalling is that I come to the end of my worrying about something and I am able to let it go and pray that prayer:  thy will be done not mine, and your love and grace is enough for me.   Then I am awash with a profound silence.  I come to the end of words and have nothing else to say and I sit for a time in the silence of a peace that has no words.  If all my words are worry then coming to the end of words is a great relief.

But what is left for me to say I wonder?  What do I have to write?  And that that is when I read this passage again from Revelation.  Write this.  The praises of God.

Actually what I did do right after reading this passage was read a short story by a young Christian writer who works with Latino immigrants, call "The Vermillion Saint."   It was a moving story set in Baja California in 1820.  It was about a young boy, a Cochimi Indian raised by a priest.  The people gave gifts of pearls to the shrine of the patron saint of the community, the Virgin of Mulege, and the priest talked about how God was turning the people into precious gems for him.  But also underlying the story was the loss of traditional culture, and the death by illness of so many of the tribal people.  The boy loved to dive for pearls, loved to please the priest, and in the end went too far and stayed too long under the sea in search of pearls.  He died and as the fisherman on the shore after his death were going though his catch they found inside the largest oyster, a pink pearl.  The priest who loved the boy disappeared into the wilderness in his grief.

I could now give you some kind of interpretation of that story.  But that is not my point today.  For me it is moving away from all the prose of explanation and interpretation, and trying to figure out – that leads to all that worry and anxiety and so on.  To move toward something else.  A kind of discernment that begins and end with sitting with the image, the metaphor, the story in the present moment and knowing the connection to the eternal that is fully revealed as you fully enter into the moment, describe the character, plot, setting.  As in the old advice for creative writer goes: show don't tell.

The bible is full of these sorts of images, and like any good vision statement they are often put in the present tense.  What is the Kingdom of God like?  Jesus answers with parables.  The passage from the Isaiah answers with more concrete images.   A feast of rich food and well aged wine set for all the people of the earth.  The shroud cast over all the people will be destroyed and death will be swallowed up.  God will wipe away the tears from all faces.  Revelation has similar images.  A new heaven and and a new earth, the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down.  God will make his home among mortals.  The modern biblical version, The Message says it this way, God is moving into the neighborhood.  He will wipe away every tear, death will be no more.

I will mention two things to notice about this images.  This is for all people, and it is happening on Earth.  These metaphors are not about a select few that make it into some other place, but about the hope for all people on earth.  This word of God, what is written here, what the bible is full of are very practical down to earth images of alleviating of suffering and peace and justice right here on earth.  And this vision steadily moves from the particular story of a particular people to a universal vision and hope for all of God's people.

And it is this wild amazing vision of a new heaven and a new earth–it is this vision of shalom, of health and wholeness and peace on earth for all people, that the saints of God see.   It is this that they write about.  And it is this that they incarnate in their lives, a lived testimony.   It is a story told in the midst of pain and suffering for sure.  It seems to be a wild fantasy at times when the obvious truth all around us speaks so clearly of another reality.

But the saints of God are speaking on the other side of that peace that passes understanding.  On the other side of that encounter with the Alpha and Omega and for them it is already done.

Jesus tells all those gathered at the death of Lazarus. "I am the resurrection and the life!"  "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?"  Not at some future date, in the end times, at the resurrection of all the dead, but here and now, in this very moment.  And Lazarus comes out of the grave, not as some aberration, some anomaly, and exception to the rule, but as a sign of something that is available to each and everyone one of us in one way or another.  We all can know the life that comes from death.

Even in the midst of our frail and weak and sinful lives.  Even as we like Francis Phelan look for redemption that seems so far away.  Even as we struggle like the priest and boy with all the conflicting forces that seem to distort and taint the good news.  Nevertheless even in tragedy we can know love.  We can find ourselves in that liminal space where the spirits come out and guide us, maybe calling us home like Francis, or maybe calling us back to the wilderness to continue our searching like the priest in that story.

But however we encounter this living God, wherever our journey takes us, we too can find ourselves in that liminal, in between place; we too can experience the peace that comes from putting our whole trust in one who is always; we all can be united with all the peoples of the world who hope for justice.  We can like Francis and the Priest be signs to others who are also searching.  They like all of us are Saints of God who no matter how dimly have caught a vision of something new and live out that vision, with it written on our bodies and souls for all to read and hear.

Jesus Christ has reconciled all things to himself.  He is the Resurrection and Life, and as we pay attention, live in the moment, here and now, show rather than tell, write this with our lives, describe in detail all the very particular beautiful details of our lives, we will see, shining through, the Glory of God.

Sermon August 9, 2015

We've been talking a lot about bread lately.  This is the third passage from John in so many weeks in which Jesus says, "I am the Bread of Life."  So I thought, for variety's sake, I'd switch metaphors today and talk about light.  In particular I did some research on the incandescent light bulb.

 

"An incandescent light produces light with a wire filament heated to a high temperature by an electric current passing through it until it glows.  The hot filament is protected from oxidation with a glass bulb filled with inert gas or evacuated."  Hm. What does that mean?  Another word for it is filament evaporation. Basically the idea is to prevent the filament from burning up completely for as long a possible.  That black stuff on a bulb when it burns out are deposits from the filament, like smoke from a fire, and the gas in the bulb which is nonreactive unlike oxygen helps to slow the process down.  All the science that has gone into light bulbs over the years, using different materials for the filament, coiling the filament, different gases in the bulb, all has been about trying to figure out how to prolong the life of the bulb so that the tiny fragile filament can last as long as possible with 100 watts of electricity constantly coursing through causing it to glow white hot.

 

We too are lights to the world with an infinite energy of the Holy Spirit coursing through our fragile bodies and making us glow a bit as well.   And it is a wonder that we too don't burn out quickly ourselves.  Much of spirituality and spiritual practice actually also is about how to live in this life of the Spirit.  How do we live with this eternal flame of the Spirit in our finite bodies?  Everything of course is important to this equation, and we try to figure out how to balance work and play, get rest and recreation, eat right and get plenty of exercise.  We learn to pray and study scripture, be nurtured in the faith by one another and mentors in the faith.  We seek to put away some of those negative traits and practice the fruits of the Spirit that Paul lists, summed up in Ephesians with the word, tenderhearted.

 

But the truth is that this doesn't necessarily led to a long life on this earth.  Some of our most famous saints of the church, those shining examples have been more like shooting stars than consistently orbiting planetary lights in the heavens. There are many historical figures who died too early, whose light was extinguished far too soon, many who we say went out with a blaze of glory.

 

Joan of Arc died in 1431, at 19.  Tried for heresy and burned at the stake by the English, she was canonized as a saint 500 years later.  As a teenager she was leading the whole French army against the English convinced that God had called her to this task, in intense visions ordering her to drive out the English from France.

 

St Thérèse of Lisieux a modern saint who died in 1897 was just 15 when she asked the Pope for special permission to enter a convent early. She died at just 23, but not before writing her spiritual journey down at the direction of her superior.  This work of intensity and simplicity describing her devotion and practice in the face of a prolonged illness from which she suffered became a best-seller.  She called her way, "The Little Way."

 

Of course there are all sorts of shooting stars.  Billy the Kid, Cattle rustler, gambler, outlaw, died in 1881, at 21, shot by a sheriff.  Orphaned at 14; killed his first man at 18.   Lots of artists produced their amazing burst of work early in life and died young.   Mozart 35, Chopin 39 Schubert 31, Jimi Hendrix 27.  Anne Frank died in 1945 when she was 15 years old in a Nazi prison camp but not before writing her diary.  The profoundly simple musing of little girl under extraordinary circumstance are a lasting testament to her short life.

 

Martin Luther King Jr. was 39.  John and Robert Kennedy.  There was a song about the three of them in the 60's.  "Anybody here seen my old friend . . . can you tell me where he's gone.  He freed a lot of people but it seems The Good they Die Young." Martin Luther King Jr said,  "I like everyone want to live a long life.  Longevity has its place."  But he was taken so young.

 

Jesus of course was only 33.  Is this the only course for the faithful lights of the world?  To burn out quickly under the intensity of the Spirit within.  We are inspired by these lights, we think of them as heroes, and they are for us models of life we are called to live.  But none of us want this really for our children.  And what do we do when we get into our 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's!  What about the rest of us? What does it mean to be faithful if we are not going to just burn out quickly but last a while longer here on this earth.  Can we still be lights to the world, can we still be heroes ourselves?

 

Theologian Stanley Hauerwas explores this idea of the heroic life as a model for our Christian life.  But he sees profound heroism not just in the grand and glorious blazing light witness that makes the headlines or the history books, but rather in the steadfastness of raising a family, caring for children, holding down a job, caring for the community around us, and in being a faith community day in and day out.  In his book Community of Character and other books he talks about the Christian life as the context in which we heroically live out the classic virtues. 

 

Two virtues he emphasizes are Patience and Courage.  He talks about the patience that is learned for example in persevering a long illness, but how we model this patience, which is a central character of God, in all we do.  We face all the challenges of our lives with a courage to persevere.  We are the ones who live through the challenges of raising children and as children the long journey of becoming and adult.  We are the ones who go to work each day and deal with endless challenges in our career, but also in our attempt to be good and decent people in the face of so much that comes our way.  We are the ones who do indeed know intimately the pain of chronic illness, the loss of loved ones.  We are endlessly learning to persevere when our dreams and plans for our own lives, or for what we hope for our community are thwarted again and again.  We are the ones who do little kindness day in and day out, give of our time, talents and treasures, all the time, for the hope of a better world in the face of incredible odds.  And we are one who know the joy of being in love, of seeing our children succeed, of crossing a major milestone in our lives, and of the comfort and support we know from one another regardless of what happens.  In so living our lives, day in and day out, we burning brightly with the Love of God.

 

Joseph Campbell wrote about the motif of the hero's journey in literature.  A pattern that is repeated again and again throughout mythology, literature and is exemplified also in our own lives.  Here's how the hero's journey goes.  The hero is living out his or her life in their very Ordinary World when they receive a Call to Adventure.  At first the hero is Reluctant, makes excuses for why he can't follow this call or sees himself unworthy.  But then something happens and she Crosses the First Threshold into a Special World in which she is answering the call.  This Special world need not be anything other than the ordinary world but suddenly it is imbued with a new light, a new glow, seems completely different.  Maybe a new context or circumstance.  Maybe it is a new marriage, or becoming a parent, or going to school for the first time, or entering a new and unfamiliar community.  Here in this Special World the hero encounters Tests, all sorts of challenges.  The hero meets new Mentors who guide him, forms Alliances and discovers also new Enemies.  Then the hero reaches the Dark Moment, the Innermost Cave (as it is often depicted in stories) where she endures the Supreme Ordeal, where she faces her ultimate fear, the ultimate test of faith.  Here that the hero's courage is put to the ultimate test.  And though often it seems that the hero is about to die under the pressure of this test, he nevertheless conquers.  It may or may not be success in the way we often define, it but nevertheless she learns some critical valuable lesson.  He Seizes the Sword (like Arthur taking the sword from the stone), or some treasure, some secret potion he needs, symbolizing what he has learned and gained from this ordeal. Then she starts the journey on the Road Back to her world.  Sometimes also on this journey home he is pursued by dangers having to continually fight off doubts about what he has learned.  But nevertheless the hero is Resurrected and transformed by this experience.  He Returns to his ordinary world with a treasure, a boon, some Elixir to benefit his world.  For this journey of the hero is not just about her own transformation, but she is contributing in her own personal journey to the transformation of the world.

 

I want you to see your lives fitting into this this pattern. You are all heroes on a hero's journey for the sake of the world.  We all, in one way or another, have experienced death and resurrection, we all fight battles and learn lessons and contribute to the world around us out of what we have learned. We are all lights to the world and this is how that light burns in us.  As we are willing to encounter mystery, cross the threshold into new adventure, overcome whatever we are facing and learn lessons, and bring back rewards and treasures for the whole world to benefit.

 

Ultimately, it is not really about figuring out a way to preserve the filament in the light bulb. No matter all the science we can muster, all the ways we seek balance, all the "figuring out" we try to do - it is not about how to try to cheat death and make our lives last forever or as long as possible.  It is not about whether we burn out quickly or last into our old age.  It is about, how ever long our lives last, however big or small we think our lives are, that we know ourselves to be on this hero's journey.  That we are following in all we do our Lord Jesus Christ in the way of Love.  As Paul says, being imitators of God as beloved children.  As I say every Sunday at the offering.  Walk in Love as Christ Loved us and gave himself and offering and a sacrifice to God.

 

Terese of Liseux says it this way:

 

"I will seek out a means of getting to Heaven by a little way—very short and very straight, a little way that is wholly new. We live in an age of inventions; nowadays the rich need not trouble to climb the stairs, they have lifts instead. Well, I mean to try and find a lift by which I may be raised unto God, for I am too tiny to climb the steep stairway of perfection. [...] Thine Arms, then, O Jesus, are the lift which must raise me up even unto Heaven. To get there I need not grow (I need not get bigger or grander); on the contrary, I must remain little, I must become still less."

 

Jesus it is your arms that lift me up, you that keep my little light shining. 

 

AMEN.