I try to imagine the sound.
They say a tornado sounds like
a freight train; what would the apostles say?
We each tell only of what we know.
Was it the bluster of flapping canvas
familiar from their days at the sail?
Or the harmonious cacophony
of a festival of flutes and whistles –
seventy-six trombones and
a few ocarinas?
I remember counting the breaths between
the lightning discharge, like fire overhead,
and the rushing wind of the thunderclap,
burrowing into my parents’ bed.
The live version of this morning’s sermon included contributions from my wonderful congregation on where they saw God and eternity, which I have not included here.
I couldn’t help thinking about the movie The Matrix as I was reflecting on this gospel. In The Matrix, humanity is living in a kind of dream world, a hallucinatory trance, while reality is hidden from them. Only by knowing the true dimension in which they live can they find and finally win their freedom.
The reality of the movie is rather grim; it doesn’t quite add up to the image of eternal life that we would like to have, but the reason that I was reminded of it was that element of seeing clearly the dimension “in which we live and move and have our being”; having, as it were, “the eyes of our hearts enlightened.”
Jesus said, “This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” Eternal life is the knowledge of what life really is; it is the knowledge of the dimension of God, in which we live, move and have our being.
After Jesus had ascended, the disciples were looking up after him, scanning the clouds that had hidden him from their sight. As they were looking, two men in white robes, otherwise known as angels, gave them the message to move on, to continue to live in the here and the now, trusting that Jesus would return but living in the meantime.
Jesus sent his disciples to seek out eternal life in the here and now; in lives both new but also continuous with the ones that they had known before. Eternal life was not to be found gazing up into the clouds, but in knowing God, as they had come to know God in the person of Jesus Christ, whom God had sent to them.
Eternal life is knowing God in our own lives, here and now; seeing clearly that in which we live and move and have our being; seeing our own lives in
So where is it that you see God?
Julian of Norwich famously found eternity in a hazelnut: in her Showings, she wrote,
And in this he showed me a little thing, the quantity of a hazel nut, lying in the palm of my hand, as it seemed. And it was as round as any ball. I looked upon it with the eye of my understanding, and thought, ‘What may this be?’ And it was answered generally thus, ‘It is all that is made.’ I marveled how it might last, for I thought it might suddenly have fallen to nothing for littleness. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasts and ever shall, for God loves it. And so have all things their beginning by the love of God. http://intotheexpectation.blogspot.com/2012/05/praying-with-julian-of-norwich-and.html
I have seen eternity in the birth of a child –
Today was my son’s birth day;
his tiny hands beginning to unfurl,
a birthmark smeared beneath one arm;
this is the closest we come to perfection;
born between earth and eternity,
the closest we come to God.
So what clouds our vision of God, or of eternity?
Suffering; violence; intractable brokenness. It is true that in this world we encounter pain and grief. But is that incompatible with eternal life?
Jesus suffered so much pain and grief; even death; and yet we know that his life was one lived in close congruence with eternity. So, no, suffering does not cut us off from eternal life, nor does it have to blind us to God.
It is part of our nature to be mortal creatures, prone to death and decay; it is another part of our nature to know that this is not what defines us, but that we are also part of eternity, and destined for glory.
What redeems us out of this suffering is love. The love of Jesus, who suffered death on the cross for us, and came back to his disciples out of love for them. The love and faithfulness of those who spend their lives relieving the suffering of others: the rescuers, the caregivers, the pain whisperers.
When we see God in those people; when we see God in one another, we see how our own lives can become mirrors, or windows, or bridges for others to see their way into a life lived in the knowledge of the love of God, a life lived in continuity with eternity; a life lived with the eyes of the heart opened and clear-sighted, to see the dimension of God in which we live and move and have our being.
It is a high calling, to be a window onto eternity, but it is an indiscriminate one. You don’t have to be the Chosen One of the Matrix to fulfill it; you only have to open your eyes to God and your heart to the world around you, just as you have done today in sharing your visions of eternity with one another.
I am grateful for your witness and your willingness to share your eternal lives.
I often find eternity in the work of the poets, so I’ll leave you this morning with this bright gem from R.S.Thomas, called
The Bright Field
I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the pearl
of great price, the one field that had
the treasure in it. I realize now
that I must give all that I haveto possess it. Life is not hurrying
on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.
A message offered to my son and his cohort, the graduating class of Bay High School, 2014:
Thank you for the honour of being with you this afternoon.
I was struck by some of the words you all chose for today: “What I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. No, the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart.”
Long ago, and far, far away, when I finished high school, I knew that one day I would be here. I mean, I hadn’t heard of Bay Village, Ohio; I didn’t know where here was, and I didn’t know what this day would look like, but I did know at least three things which eventually would get me here.
I knew that I wanted a life full of love.
I knew that I was called to serve God as a priest.
I also knew, by the time I finished high school, that I would never make it as a concert pianist, which helped considerably with narrowing down my focus.
I have to tell you that not everyone believed what I knew for myself to be true. My father had ambitions on my behalf; he thought, at one time, that traditional work was all well and good as a back-up plan, but that I should really be concentrating on my music.
I didn’t know, back then, who it was that I would love more than life itself. I had no idea that a person’s heart could be divided so many times, and drawn outside of themselves, and that person only become more alive. It’s like the loaves and the fishes; it seems that the more people love is shared amongst, the more there is. And because I am blessed to love a son who is in this class, I get to be here with you today.
As for the priest thing, I have to tell you that it took me a rather long time. I wasn’t as courageous or imaginative as the first women ordained in my church, so I wasn’t a pioneer. And when my children were small, it was all I could do to get three matching pairs of shoes onto three matching pairs of feet.
I read a poem this week by David Whyte:
THE JOURNEY
Sometimes everything
has to be
enscribed across
the heavensso you can find
the one line
already written
inside you…From ‘The Journey’: in ‘River Flow: New and Selected Poems’ ©David Whyte and Many Rivers Press
That word, that call was already written inside me; and though it took me a while, by God’s grace it is as a pastor as well as a parent that I have the privilege of being with you today.
And I stand here today in awe of all of you, because you have already everything you need to be the person whom God has called you to be, because you are made in the very image of God; because you are already exactly who you need to be.
Still, if I had to give you some advice to take on your journey, from my experience it would be this:
Work hard, put your energy, your life, your love into things that matter to you. Resist the temptation to be distracted by the ambitions that other people might have for you; if they don’t resonate with that word that God has placed in your heart, they are not yours.
Maya Angelou, whom you all know passed away this week, is quoted as saying, “You can only become truly accomplished at something you love.” http://www.neontommy.com/news/2014/05/maya-angelou-s-legacy-9-quotes-inspire
Go easy on yourself if some things that you know you are called to still take a little longer than you expect. Enjoy those little detours that life and the Holy Spirit have in store for you.
Live a life that you can love, and live it in the knowledge that you are loved.
There are people all over this room who are here simply because they love you and will support you every step of the way. And you have heard clearly from your classmates how much God loves you, the goodness God has in store for you.
My car has a bumper sticker on it from The Episcopal Diocese of Ohio, of which I and some of you are a part. It says, God Loves You, No Exceptions.
Whether you worked your rear end off at school or scooted around the hallways on it, God loves you. No exceptions.
Whether you find the love of your life on your first day of work or college, or whether you are only just learning to love yourself, God loves you. No exceptions.
When the world fails you (because it will), remember that God loves you. No exceptions.
When you fail and falter (because you will), God still loves you; and God will help you put the pieces back together again.
When you fall in love with your life, God falls with you, never further from you than your own heart. No exceptions.
I quoted another poem in this morning’s sermon at my church (I like poetry):
Today was my son’s birth day;
his tiny hands beginning to unfurl,
a birthmark smeared beneath one arm;
this is the closest we come to perfection;
born between earth and eternity,
the closest we come to God.
(Rosalind C Hughes)
All of you were born into lives that are pregnant with infinite and eternal possibility, and you bear the image of God within you, the Word of God, in your mouths and in your hearts.
So my charge to you is also my prayer for you: to go out from here with confidence in the love that surrounds you. Live a life that you love, and live it in the knowledge that you are loved. Go in peace, and may each of you know that you go with God.
Jesus said, “And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”
Today was my son’s birth day.
Small and soft, he begins to unfurl,
a birthmark smeared beneath one arm;
the closest we come to perfection.
Born between earth and eternity,
the closest we come to God.
Because good girls don’t make a scene;
because it isn’t ladylike to swear.
Because of “shriek,” “screech,” and “shrill,”
the vocabulary of shame.
Because strong protest is, methinks,
too often twisted and turned back.
Because denial tied my tongue.
Because of the breath shocked out of me.
Because of your hand across my mouth.
Because you told me not to cry out.
Because if I had spoken out
who would have believed me?
Because I didn’t know the words.
Because I was taught to be quiet
and nice, hold my tongue,
bite my lip, my voice
has a tendency
to trail away…
From today’s Bible Challenge blog. We have been reading the Book of Esther over the weekend; one which I find disturbing for many reasons. The coincidence of this reading with the tragic murders of Friday and the conversations that have happened in its aftermath was one I couldn’t in good conscience ignore. I do not claim to offer wisdom. I do offer my prayers.
Esther 9-10, Psalm 145, II Corinthians 4
On Friday, I wrote about the dangerous sexism embedded into the very foundations of the story of Esther. I was shocked, saddened and ashamed to read later that same day of the misogynistic and murderous rampage that occurred that evening in Isla Vista, California. Over the weekend, I read many tweets and commentaries about tweets containing the hashtag #YesAllWomen, detailing the casual, demeaning and dangerous sexism and misogyny that women continue to face. Yes, all women.
Last night, watching television, we saw a minutes-long portrayal of lechery and casual sexism by a group of male cooking contestants (why was this relevant to a cooking show? Ratings, one assumes.). My husband, dear sweet man, turned to me and said, “I apologize for the members of my sex.” Having assured him that I do not consider him personally to be a contributor to the problem, I…
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William Barclay said,
There were many altars to unknown gods in Athens. Six hundred years before his a terrible pestilence had fallen on the city which nothing could halt. A Cretan poet, Epimenides, had come forward with a plan. A flock of black and white sheep were let loose throughout the city from the Areopagus. Wherever each lay down it was sacrificed to the nearest god; and if a sheep lay down near the shrine of no known god it was sacrificed to “The Unknown God.”*
So Paul begins his preaching in Athens in a rather sarcastic manner, saying, “So, I see you’re really religious, right?”
Actually, at this point Paul has been in Athens for some little while, waiting for Silas and Timothy to come and join him on his journey. Whilst there, he has noticed the preponderance of idols around the city, and it has got him quite upset, so he has been engaging everyone he can find in argument about them, because of course idolatry is strictly forbidden in Jewish tradition, and has a history of getting the people of God into trouble whenever they have indulged in it.
The people of Athens, we are told, loved nothing more than a new idea, an innovative philosophy, a shiny new idol to adore. When Paul came preaching the resurrection of Jesus Christ, they thought that was exactly what they had found; and finding Paul quite happy to talk and dispute and discuss until the cows came home, they invited him to do just that.
And he rewarded them with biting sarcasm, “So, you’re really religious, right?”
The Athenians, if we believe the story about the sheep, said, fine, we may not know the name of the god this sheep is laying next to, but we can still control it with a little bit of ovine sacrifice. We can contain it with a shrine, so that next time we need a pestilence driving out, we know where to find it again. We can keep it at our side, for our convenience.
In some ways you can hardly blame the Athenians for wanting to cover all the bases. After all, don’t we do the same? How many people here have buried a statue of whoever it is you bury in your front yard to sell your house? Is that the one you bury upside down? What about the little rituals that we make up to bring us luck?
And we do more. Some of us make idols out of flags. Some of us make idols out of guns. Some of us make idols out of people, or out of ideas, even good one. Even the good ones become idols when we trust them with our salvation.
We all do it. We do it, I think, because we like to think that we have our bases covered, that we are in control, that even when we face the unknown, we can label it and build a shrine to it, or destroy it and bury it. We are not so different from the Athenians.
We make idols out of everything and anything that we think will keep God at our side, on our side, at our convenience. When we reduce God, in whom live and move and have our being, to a shrine, to a ritual, to a touchstone or an idea, even a good idea; whether or not we give it the name of God, we are practicing idolatry.
“Well aren’t you the religious ones,” says Paul.
The good news (says Paul) is that although any god that we might hope to control is no god at all, there is a way to know the uncontrollable, unpredictable, wildly wonderful, abundantly real God without sacrificing our senses, without sacrificing our minds or memories, and even without sacrificing sheep. The God whom we all know with the essence of our being, in whom, in fact, “we live and move and have our being,” although not confined by gold or silver or stone (let alone by flags or guns), has deigned to share our human nature with us, so that we might, through the person of Jesus, know God in a very human way.
There’s a paradox, a seemingly unresolvable tension in all of this. If we try to make God in our own image, then we commit idolatry. Yet we ourselves are made in God’s own image, and we know God, although, as Paul says elsewhere, we see God as though through glass, or through water.
In last week’s gospel Jesus insisted that his disciples had seen God because they had seen him; that they knew God because they knew him; that they had heard God because Jesus was speaking to them. Now, he addresses us: Although I have to go away, he says, you will not be left alone. You, too, will know me, will know God, because of the Holy Spirit whom God is sending to you. And you will know the Spirit, because the Spirit is that which lives in you, and in which you live and move and have your being. It is the very breath of life; it is the whisper of God in the wind, and the haze on the horizon, and it is in the Spirit that you will continue to know me, and through me, to know God.
With the coincidence of this reading falling on Memorial Day weekend, by simple word association I was reminded by the shrine of the Unknown God of the tradition of the tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
We memorialize that which we do not remember, which we do not know, but we do know, when we pay our respects at the tomb of the Unknown Solider, that we are honouring real people, real memories, real sacrifice. Just because we do not know their names or faces does not make them vague or immaterial, nor any less important in the scheme of things than those that we do know; and we trust that our sorrow, our horror at the horrors of war, our penitence for our part in the violence that kills the sons and daughters of our neighbours, even in our ignorance, is acceptable, and that our prayers, even for those whom we do not know, are heard by the One who knows all.
We try so hard to pin things down, to make them, literally, concrete. Yet there is a blessed unknowing that comes from knowing that God is God, and has created all things and loves everyone that has been created. There is a comfort in letting go of the need to control an idol, and instead trusting the living God to work out the plan for our salvation.
The Athenians, because they did not know God, had to make one up: The Unknown God. We who know God, revealed to us in the Risen Christ, breathed over us anew each day by the Holy Spirit, who is our constant companion and Comforter; we are free instead of making idols to let God be God.
Perhaps if we were to let go of a few more of our own idols, and let God be God, we would more readily recognize the Holy Spirit in the image of others, more easily keep the commandments of love that Jesus gave to his disciples; perhaps we might even find that peace which is offered to all peoples, nations and families of God’s creation; that peace which passes all understanding.
For such peace, let us pray:
Eternal God, in whose perfect kingdom no sword is drawn but the sword of righteousness, no strength known but the strength of love: So mightily spread abroad your Spirit, that all peoples may be gathered under the banner of the Prince of Peace, as children of one Father; to whom be dominion and glory, now and for ever. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer)
*William Barclay, The Daily Study Bible: The Acts of the Apostles (St Andrew’s Press, 1976),
The only sign of a seam
between sea and sky,
a bright, slim line;
the sun falling,
pooling;
a slick of liquid gold.
Haiku towards a reflection on the Flood and the ark as symbols of baptism: 1 Peter 3:13-22, Year A Easter 6
Children of the flood,
each of us was drowned at birth,
startled to breath.
Some years ago, a friend’s child got sick. Then she got sicker. …
The child recovered, but she had not survived the experience unscathed. Neither, of course, had her parents.
During that difficult time, a group of friends were discussing prayer. “I keep praying for her,” said one. “I pray while I’m doing the washing up, while I’m walking the dog, when I wake up in the night. But I am no longer sure what it is that I am doing. I don’t see that it makes much of a difference. I don’t know, any more, why I am praying.”
Jesus said, “I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.”
Some petitions are easy to dispose of. It would seem disrespectful, even blasphemous, to ask in Jesus’ name for a financial windfall, or the success of a sport’s team; we don’t really hold Jesus to his guarantee when we know that we’re misusing it, abusing his generosity, mocking the gifts of God. And there are some logical problems, too. If I win the lottery, what happens to the prayers of all the others who are asking in Jesus’ name for their own payout? If my team wins, what happened to the prayers of the other side? For God, all things are possible, but God has kindly created a world in which some sort of order prevails, so that we are not driven mad by its unpredictability and caprice. My God, if everyone who prayed for a prime parking space in Christmas shopping season at the mall got one, what would that do to the landscape?
Those are the easy ones. But what about the bigger picture, such as need for wisdom in government, compassion in the courts, intelligence in scientific research, humility in our dealings one with another, peace between people and their nations? We ask for such things, we are mandated to ask them in our Prayers of the People, but sometimes we wonder if we are seeing any results.
There’s a comic strip that was going around Facebook a year or so ago, which I saw again recently, in which someone is afraid to ask God why there is still poverty and war and suffering in the world. Why is he afraid to ask? wonders his friend. “I’m afraid God will ask me the same question,” says the reluctant prayer.
Harry Emerson Fosdick suggests that sometimes, we “attempt to achieve by supplication what can be achieved only by thinking,” thinking things through; working things out, ways in which, says Fosdick, just as much as in prayer, we make ourselves partners with God in the world.[1] Jesus taught his disciples to pray for their daily bread – and he fed the multitudes with bread and fish. Jesus says plenty about works in this passage – much more than he does, in fact, about prayer. “You will do greater works than these,” he promises. Works demand work.
In a more personal and poetic vein, John Newton, he of “Amazing Grace” fame, wrote this hymn:
I asked the Lord that I might grow
In faith, and love, and every grace;
Might more of His salvation know,
And seek, more earnestly, His face.’Twas He who taught me thus to pray,
And He, I trust, has answered prayer!
But it has been in such a way,
As almost drove me to despair.I hoped that in some favored hour,
At once He’d answer my request;
And by His love’s constraining pow’r,
Subdue my sins, and give me rest.Instead of this, He made me feel
The hidden evils of my heart;
And let the angry pow’rs of hell
Assault my soul in every part.Yea more, with His own hand He seemed
Intent to aggravate my woe;
Crossed all the fair designs I schemed,
Blasted my gourds, and laid me low.Lord, why is this, I trembling cried,
Wilt thou pursue thy worm to death?
“’Tis in this way, the Lord replied,
I answer prayer for grace and faith.These inward trials I employ,
From self, and pride, to set thee free;
And break thy schemes of earthly joy,
That thou may’st find thy all in Me.”[2]
So, prayer is not always answered as we expect. Prayer is not the only way in which we cooperate with God nor God with us. And petitionary prayer, or intercessory prayer – the prayers in which we ask good things for ourselves or for others – are not the only kind of prayer that God entertains.
Still, it is hard, when we are in the position that my friends and I were in a decade ago, helpless, hand-wringing, wondering what Jesus could possibly have meant when he promised to do what we ask in his name if not this: to ease, to remove the suffering from a child, and her family.
Fosdick points out that the Bible is full of unanswered prayers.[3] From the prayer of Job: “I cry unto thee, and that dost not answer me: I stand up, and thou gazest at me,” (Job 30:20), to the prayer of Jesus: “If it be your will, take this cup from me,” the Bible is full of prayers that are left poignantly unresolved. But are they unanswered?
God, in good time, speaks to Job out of the storm; it may not be the answer Job expects, but God does answer him, and God asks Job, “Would you discredit my justice? Would you condemn me to justify yourself?” (Job 40:8)
God gives Jesus the grace to end his prayer, “Yet not my will, but thine,” and the strength to follow through.
Jesus says, “Believe in God. Believe also in me.” Trust me.
We may not know what we are doing when we pray, but God will not turn away from us because of our ignorance, or if we use the wrong words. This is one of the reasons that we pray in Jesus’ name:
“Christ our Head gathers together all the dim and faltering prayers of his members, our futile prayers, our sighs and groans that cannot be put into words, our numbness and our silence, and he interprets and presents them to the one God and Father of all.
That is why we regularly end our prayers with the words, ‘through Jesus Christ our Lord.’ … by which I mean that Jesus Christ my Head and the Head of the whole Church will explain to my heavenly Father what I have been trying to say and what I have failed to say, and that it is because of him, and not because of any virtue or merit in myself, that I Know I shall be heard.”
So Alec Roper Vidler, in his Windsor Sermons.[4]
Jesus says, “Believe in God. Believe also in me.” Trust me.
I wonder if that is what it means to become a holy people, a royal priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God, proclaiming the works of the one who has brought us out of darkness into light. It is nothing less than to gather up the prayers of the people, the groans and sighs that cannot be put into words, and the curses and cries that can, and to present them to God as a spiritual sacrifice, in the name of Jesus Christ, who interprets them and present them to the one God and Father of all.
We have all known of prayers that have been answered, and they bolster our faith. It is our spiritual sacrifice to continue to be faithful in prayer, to continue to pray even when we don’t know what we are doing, what we are saying, what God’s answer will be. It is our spiritual sacrifice, as a priesthood of believers, to believe on behalf of the world in God, and also in Jesus, to place our hope in the Resurrection.
It is the work of the church to gather the prayers of the people in Jesus’ name. You who have received mercy, you are a royal priesthood, consecrated and appointed on behalf of the world to lift up its prayers to God, in Jesus’ name, to offer your faith as a spiritual sacrifice, trusting in the loving kindness of God, which never fails, never falters, never ends, even in the face of death.
In the name of the Risen Christ, Amen.
[1] Harry Emerson Fosdick, The Meaning of Prayer (National Board of the Young Women’s Christian Associations, 1915), 126
[2] http://cyberhymnal.org/htm/i/a/iaskedtl.htm
[3] Fosdick, 122-3
[4] Vidler, Alec Roper, quoted in Love’s Redeeming Work, compilers Geoffrey Rowell, Kenneth Stevenson, Rowan Williams (Oxford University Press, 2003), 641-6
