Guests, Not Hosts: Speaking to the Soul for August 25, 2022

In the beginning, 

our very first story about ourselves ends
with the reminder we were born hungry,
body and soul:

On the day before God rested, at the dawn
of time, God granted the newborn humanity
every herb and fruit tree for our food,
sprung from the same soil
as we were. God invites us all
to a seat at the wedding table of creation-
creation we are bound to
creation we are bound to care for,
into which we ourselves are woven
as a part of the whole. There is
one table, and it is the altar
and sacred precincts
of life itself, insisting on our unity
in shared need for nourishment.

And so it is that we are reminded
in our body’s hunger, and by our food,
from the juiciest boredom-plucked berry
and truffles worth their weight in gold,
to bologna with spelled-out first and second names,
that all the sustenance we receive
is provided from this fragile planet
by God’s tender loving-kindness.

And so it is the soul’s hunger
draws us around God’s holy table
for a foretaste of heaven,
bearing our offerings from God’s creation
formed by human hands, yes,
but sacrament at the invocation
of the finger of God in our midst.
It’s a wonder
our hair doesn’t stand on end.

We are fed
not through our words
but by holy gift
that calls us into God’s own unity.

You can have communion,
or you can have competition,
but not both.
We share with each other
what is not ours to give
or take away.

There can be no jostling or jockeying
for the best place at this table, just rejoicing
that all are invited,
that there is room to spare,
that we are guests, not hosts.

-- This was first published at Episcopal Journal's Speaking to the Soul on August 25, 2022.

The Caryatid Set Free: Sermon for Proper 16C

The first time I eve saw her was in Room 19 of the British Museum, a tentative foot stepping forward. A basket was atop her head, supposedly in imitation of the maidens of Sparta who would dance with baskets on their heads in honor of the goddess “Artemis of the Walnut Tree,” Artemis Karyatis. So these sculptures were called “caryatids.”

Once she and her sisters had stood in formation on the Acropolis. In Greek and Roman architecture these slender maidens were given the job of holding up enormous weights and bearing up under incredible force and pressure as a cross between engineering necessity and artistic detail. Together, they bore the weight of the stone roof of this enormous temple and other huge stone structures. The baskets on their heads served as capitals, and their bodies, draped in graceful tunics called peplos, served as pillars. Six of them stood in formation originally at the Erechtheion.

The idea of depicting young women as bearing this incredibly heavy weight offended me at first sight—it reminded me of the typical instruction to young women in cultures everywhere to “Sit still, shut, up, and look pretty.” From a practical standpoint, it seemed delusional to expect anyone so delicate to bear such weight on top of their heads and slender spines-- especially with such apparent ease, their perfect posture denying the laws of gravity and physics.

More than 2000 years later, the great French sculptor Auguste Rodin created a sculpture protesting the impossibility of the caryatid’s task. His work was entitled Fallen Caryatid Carrying Her Stone. And when you know that he pulled and expanded her figure from a detail in an earlier work of art known as The Gates of Hell, looking upon her becomes even more poignant.

Rodin reveals the pathos and the hidden strength in his sculpture. The maiden has crumpled under the weight she has been expected to carry. She is seated, her head turned to one side resting upon her crossed arms as her left hand still cradles her stone as it rests on the curve of her shoulder and neck. Her feet are both still touching the ground, making it clear that eventually her body was driven straight down by the weight she carried, leaving her to rest upon her hips. Her tunic has fallen off her shoulder and lies pooled upon the one leg bent along the ground.

And her delicate face…. Eyes downcast in exhaustion, sorrow, and heartbreak. She wearily rests against her right wrist crossed over her left bicep. Her shape has been remade from a stately column to a crumpled, box-like frame. Yet she steadfastly, diligently refuses to put down her stone. Perhaps out of shame. Perhaps out of determination that she will soon gather the strength to rise again and resume her lonely duty.

Her unlined, youthful face suggests this is the first time she has fallen—and that she may have fallen, but she has not been crushed. She is bent by the load she has been expected to bear, and yet she is never broken. The Fallen Caryatid is a therefore nonetheless a depiction of the darkness before the dawn, of the reserves that lie beneath the surface of one who once danced as lightly as a shadow when asked only to bear a basket, but who is determined to never surrender when asked to do the impossible.

In my mind, I guess I always associated that fallen caryatid of Rodin’s with that lonely caryatid in the British Museum, missing her five sisters. Caryatids are not meant to be alone. There is absolutely no way they can bear their terrible loads, unless the force, the pressure, the weight is shared. I think of that fallen caryatid, and I think there is another point in Rodin’s: with enough kindred to bear the collective weight, she would never have collapsed. Six caryatids upheld the roof of the Erechtheion. One, alone, cannot.

Most of us have experienced weights too heavy for us to bear alone, burdens that nearly bend us double. And yet, dutifully, we too often refuse to put down our stone, or to seek help to share the load.

In last Sunday’s gospel from Luke 13:10-17, Jesus spots a woman bent double by an unknown weight or source of suffering she has been carrying for 18 years. The fact that the people know how long she has been unable to stand up shows that they have observed her suffering for all that time. And yet no help or cure has been found to help this poor woman find relief. Perhaps her pain and suffering have rendered her invisible—or have caused others to look away because they don’t know what to say, or do, or they see in her situation their own worst fears of illness and mortality brought to life. They perhaps have chosen to look away, even though, like the fallen caryatid, her burden is visible and tragic. And so she has persevered simply because she must, for these 18 long years.

She has been carrying on, refusing to be crushed by her burden, just like the fallen caryatid of Rodin’s.

In our gospel, Jesus looks across the synagogue and sees that unfortunate woman bearing her burden with quiet determination. He sees her, sees the real person disguised by the burden she carries. He sees her as a “daughter of Abraham,” worthy of dignity and relief. And he heals her and relieves of her burden.

Jesus sees us, too, and is our companion and comfort in times of suffering and stress. Some of the burdens that try to bend us double—loneliness, a feeling of disconnection, anxiety, hopelessness—can be alleviated by Christ, especially in the Body of Christ in the world, in his disciples joining together and themselves “seeing” and acknowledging the needs of each other, and of the greater world around us, and joyfully responding to our obligation as people of faith to not just see, but respond, as Jesus does. Others of those burdens can be alleviated by the Body of Christ advocating in the world against injustice, poverty, homelessness, war, and racism. That’s where we, as the Body of Christ, join in his healing, transforming mission.

What burdens have you carried that tried to bend you double? Where do you see others suffering?

Let’s look for ways to share the load, for the sake of each other, and in the name of Jesus.

Preached at the 505 on October 20, 2022 at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, MO.

The Gardener Asks for Wonder: Speaking to the Soul, August 18, 2022

 

“Never once in my life did I ask God 
for success or wisdom or power or fame.
I asked for wonder, 

and he gave it to me.” – Abraham Joshua Heschel

 

Knee-deep in a prie-dieu of compost,
I asked for wonder,
and pledged my attention,
hoping to lose
thought of myself
in the prayer of planting (for
both are acts of hope)—

seedlings sliding like prayer beads
through my hands what was once
a ditch-side rogue’s gallery elevated
to rockstar status in repair of the Earth:
Joe Pye weed, bergamot, Indian
blanket, rue, aster, true blue
wild indigo, lead plant, blazing star,
columbine, Queen Anne’s lace, 
even lowly clover and thistle.
Turn, turn, turn; the time to pluck up is gone;
the time to plant our purpose under heaven.

To feel the thrum of life beneath my feet,
human rooted in humus
as in the beginning--
almost like stumbling across
God perambulating in an evening garden
leaving behind dewy footprints fresh from bestriding
the sea, pacing off its measure in refutation of Job;

To hear the ethereal
music of hillside pine needle overhead
propelled by wind, the choir 
of hummingbird and song sparrow bobbing
on risers of redbud to the overture of offstage thunder.

But now it has
come down to this:

God answers through
a single brave
monarch butterfly
fluttering by, the first
of the season (enticed by
suburban crewcut

lawns surrendered
and sacrificed as altars 
to milkweed), and by the once-
quotidian honeybee delicately
and now heroically paying homage,
sending salvations of salvia and soybeans nodding, merely
feeding a planet…

and we rejoice at the sight, remembering
when we fools thought them 
common
as a comma.

Here is our hope on the wing.

--This was first published at Episcopal Journal's Speaking to the Soul on August 18, 2022.

Forest Sonnet, Whidbey Island: Speaking to the Soul for August 11, 2022

(For a friend in grief,
for the assurance of resurrection )

 

 

Now, no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
No mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for."
     --from “Spring and Fall,” by Gerard Manley Hopkins



Here Sorrow springs and newborn Spring sorrows;
Their grief resolves in fiddleheads tomorrow.
The mournful poet sees the greening leaf
and vaults ahead to autumn's parting grief....

An anticipatory grief, so-called.
Here last year's leaves lie trodden, branch scraped-bald
From winter's remnant grip. But see, as Spring
Flushes first rosy throat, as thrushes sing

God's glory! Still, larks chirruping, skimming
The winds arise from southern vales, brimming
Their blessings upon the restive, waking Earth.
The forest floor will testify that birth

Sings from subsidence, converting death
God's gravid Spirit-- resurrection's breath.

--This was first published at Episcopal Journal's Speaking to the Soul on August 11, 2022.

Stars and Bars: Sermon for Proper 14C

This weekend, we celebrate the baptism of young Will Ross, the infant son of Sean and Cary, baby brother of Elliott. Baptism is a time of great joy, a time of commitment, of expanding the circle of the community, of welcoming the newest member of the Body of Christ into a life of joy, love, worship, and compassionate service as a disciple of Jesus. Alongside Will and his family and godparents, we commit ourselves once again to renewing our commitment not just to Christ but to each other and to the Ross family. It’s a glorious time of new beginning and of celebrating not just a new life, but the hope, joy, and beauty we image for him and his beloveds throughout his life, and for all his beloveds.

It is, indeed, a glorious time for new beginnings, a time of wonder.

God knows many of us need a good dose of wonder and amazement to bring us light and life. Wonder and amazement helps us see beyond the stresses and distractions that can cause us to forget our belovedness, our rootedness in the kin-dom of God.

We DO live in a time of wonders, after all. Just a couple of weeks ago, on July 11, the James Webb Space Telescope transmitted its first pictures back from Earth from its own spot orbiting the Sun 930,000 miles from Earth. One of the first images it transmitted was of a cloudy area known as “The Cosmic Cliffs” in the Carina Nebula. (1)

The image is dotted with spectacular six-pointed stars against a midnight blue and black backdrop. A gossamer curtain of red, orange, and rust colored clouds hangs across the bottom 2/3 of the image, and hundreds of stars of various sizes shine out of and through the veil. The image practically pulsates with light and life, giving the appearance of movement. And indeed, this is a place where, even better than in Hollywood, stars are born. This area is a veritable star nursery out on the edge of our own Milky Way galaxy about 7600 light-years from Earth.

This incredible photograph immediately brought to mind one of my favorite paintings—The Starry Night, painted by Vincent Van Gogh in 1888. Van Gogh painted this painting in the small town of Saint-Remy de Provence while housed in an asylum there. The sky was the one visible from his east window. He then added a cypress tree on the left edge of the painting, and part of the town only visible from another perspective to anchor the lower part of the painting. And of course, over the town, the stars and the moon pulse and vibrate with a vitality that draws the viewer’s eye directly into painting.

Apparently, I am not the only person who associated these two images in my mind, because someone has actually taken the painting and the image from the telescope and superimposed them upon each other. The result is astonishing. (2)

And come to find out, scientists agree that Van Gogh’s iconic masterpiece, from a period of personal turbulence in his life, also reflects the turbulence of molecular clouds like that in the Carina Nebula, the churning birthplaces of stars. And so, for the first time ever, I am about to quote from Physics magazine in a sermon. As they recount it:

A student at the Australian National University, Canberra, [James] Beattie studies the structure and dynamics of molecular clouds—the birthplaces of stars—whose churning eddies often make him think of the Dutch painting. He recently put that resemblance to the test with help from Neco Kriel, a student at Queensland University of Technology in Australia. Using techniques developed to analyze the patterns of simulated molecular clouds, the duo compared art and reality, finding that both display the same turbulent features. While it may only be a happy coincidence that Van Gogh’s sky contains star-related patterns, the presence of turbulent motifs is common in paintings, likely due to the abundance of turbulent phenomena in our everyday lives. (3)

Looking only with his naked eye—but most importantly, the eye of his imagination, Van Gogh captured not only an evocative representation of his own inner anxiety and hope; he also depicted a quality of the heavens above us that can currently only be seen by use of powerful telescopes. It truly is miraculous!

Here, truly, we have an example of art imitating life. Perhaps we need that reminder. For many of us, after all, we also live in turbulent times. In just the few days since NASA posted that image of the Cosmic Cliffs, the Midwest and Kentucky has been inundated with severe storms and floods, while the West, under its years-long drought, continues to burn and even cause fish kills, all while the reservoirs that make life possible there begin to empty out. We’re still in the midst of the COVID pandemic, washing over us wave after wave after wave. The economy can’t seem to make up its mind as to whether these are the best of times or the worst of times. Turbulence, indeed.

And it is in this situation that perhaps we can hear anew the gospel message Christ gives us in today’s reading from Luke. Sadly, our lectionary skips over the verses in between this week’s and last week’s reading. Because they would help center us even more fully in the message Jesus is giving us, I want to remind you of them, and not just because they include one of the Rev. Shug's favorite images.

Here’s what we missed after last week’s parable of the rich fool:

Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith! And do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying. For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, strive for his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well. (Luke 12:22-31)

As someone who could probably medal in the Olympics of worrying, these verses have always been very helpful to me. The verses we then heard in our gospel reading a few moments ago reinforce this missing passage.

So let’s look at the assigned verses for this week. Once again, like last week, the topic is priorities and the trust that is required to have them in the right place.

One of the great cures for worry and despair, I have found, is action. And here Jesus gives three commands to his followers, that makes that point clear to all of us:

1. Do not be afraid.
2. Sell your possessions and give alms.
3. Be ready for action, with lamps lit for a journey even in the dark.

Remember the classic trio of faith, hope, and love (or charity)? Here they are again! Look at the commands again. In other words:

1. Have faith.
2. Have charity.
3. Have hope for God’s kingdom here on earth.

1. Have faith- do not be afraid. Did you know that the command “Do not be afraid” occurs 67 times in the NRSV version of the Bible, 49 times in the Old Testament alone? Fear prevents us from thinking and seeing reality and instead causes us to react instinctively. Once we are not afraid, we can ACT. Specifically, in this reading, Jesus reminds us of God’s providence and love for us. Following the command not to be afraid, three command verbs are specifically used: sell, give, make. Sell your possessions, give to the poor, make a purse for your REAL treasure—life in God here on earth, which you will have so abundantly you will need a purse for it.

2. Have charity. The action that flows from conquering our fear is to show our love for neighbor, which the kingdom of God will be grounded upon, by taking care of others. That’s what alms are for. Give to those who can give nothing back. Your reward will be from God for putting your priorities and actions in the right place. Once you have faith, act upon that faith by focusing on others, especially the poor. Just as the opposite of fear is faith and trust, the opposite of fear is being openhearted. This involves more than just charity, however, but a total realignment of the values human societies are all-too-often based upon. The foundation of God’s kingdom is justice and generosity.

3. Have hope. Be ready for “the master’s” return—here Jesus is talking about when the kingdom of God will be established here on earth and “he will come to judge the living and the dead.” We do not know when that will happen, but it is clear that we have a part to play in establishing it—we must act to bring it into being. This is another tie to the Hebrews reading, by the way—the audience was despairing that the Parousia—the return of Christ from Heaven discussed in the Baptismal Covenant and the Creeds—had not occurred yet. Thus this gospel reading could be addressed to the same audience there, as well.

Jesus seeks to encourage us in our continuing life of faith—encouraging us to not just grit our way through, to not just endure when times can seem difficult, but to see life, joy, and hope even in the midst of turbulent times.

Van Gogh’s painting can actually help us here, too. In order to create this luminous picture, he chose to creatively arrange the sections of his painting. The town at the bottom was not visible from the vantage point from which he painted—but he added it anyway. And down in the center, so often overlooked, is a glowing white ember of the village church—whose church bells soothed him so often during each day and night. 

But an even more significant choice Van Gogh made is in what he DIDN’T paint into the image—the bars on the window of his room in that asylum. He looked through them, and beyond them, in order to capture the throbbing turbulence and yet also hopefulness of that night sky. As we see from the picture from the Webb Telescope, that turbulence also represents new life, new stars, coming into existence.

We too, can spend our life looking at the bars, or looking at the stars. We can spend our life looking on a darkened town—or we can see the brave, resilient church that shines out day or night, a church that has no idea how much its mere presence alone encourages those who encounter it.

Jesus calls us to faith, to hope, to charity, to look for and embrace the wonders all around us. To embrace the wonder of a new member of the Body of Christ, as we will now do.

Amen.

Preached at the 505 on August 6 and at the 10:30 Holy Baptism on August 7 at St. Martin's Episcopal Church in Ellisville, MO.

Readings:

Isaiah 1:1, 10-20
Psalm 50:1-8, 23-24
Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16
Luke 12:32-40

Citations:

1) Picture of the Cosmic Cliffs from NASA is found at https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-webb-reveals-cosmic-cliffs-glittering-landscape-of-star-birth

2) Van Gogh's The Starry Night Combined with the image of the Cosmic Cliffs found at : https://www.reddit.com/r/deepdream/comments/w4d916/starry_starry_night_nasas_cosmic_cliffs_from_the/

3) Article from Physics magazine quoted at https://physics.aps.org/articles/v12/45

On the Jericho Road: Speaking to the Soul, August 4, 2022

Luke 10:25-37

 

 

On the Jericho road his luck ran out.
The air above the beaten track shimmered
and hissed like a snake. One sandal
lay in the center of the road, vanquished—the thieves
had left that, but all else was gone. 
Its forsaken foot curled up into the lip of the ditch,
disembodied. The man laid there,
arms flung wide, like a fledgling who had
fallen to earth; astonishment curtained 
his inert mouth. He floated
in a sea of dust, blood
pooling in tracks from his wounds. A buzzard
clasped a crag, sensing promise.

 

Perhaps the road would bring a savior.

Face toward Jerusalem, the priest 
placed each foot delicately after the other, and then
drew the drape of his robe
across his face at the sight, blanched,
and muttered charms to ward off evil
as he moved to the other side, eyes averted. 
A prayer of thanks rose skyward,
congratulating himself for his own righteousness,
to preserve him from such a fate. So too
the Son of Levi--he clasped his ewer by the handle,
suspicion of ambush and 
contempt seizing his heart like a fist,
edging away on his holy business.

A buzz of flies eddied in his wake.
The buzzard snorted humorlessly 
and shrugged. 
Not long now.

There was no one to see, they thought—
but behind the blue veil of sky
the stars blinked 
and spun in protest.

The sun mounted higher.
A Samaritan approached, 
fresh from shunning by the priest and Levite,
who’d made him walk around them.
But at the sandal he slowed, his donkey
shaking her head, skittish at tang and echo of violence
in her nostrils and ears, at the glare
that glowed off sunburned flesh. 
Her master crouched beside
the discarded sack of a man, 
leaking like a burst wineskin. 
He could still walk away.

 

                                    “Cursed be
the one who leads the blind
on the road astray, or distorts
the justice and mercy owed a stranger,”
the Samaritan murmured.
The donkey breathed the amens.

A trumpet blare of mercy
echoed in his soul’s chamber; the 
walls of the Samaritan’s heart lay in rubble.

With gentle hands he shifted the donkey’s load until
he found wine and oil,
anointing the wounds 
and cooling the stranger’s brow.

Like a mother, tenderly he drew 
the fevered body to his chest, arms beneath 
neck and knee, and raised his neighbor
from ditch to donkey delicately,
claiming the stranger as his brother, 
whose heartbeat was an obligation, whose face
so closely resembled his own,
and only the buzzard turned a baleful eye,
a grudging witness.

--This was first published at Episcopal Journal's Speaking to the Soul on August 4, 2022.

 

Opening Acclamation

 Presider      In you, Father all-mighty, we have our preservation and our bliss. In you, Christ, we have our restoring and our saving. You are our mother, brother, and Savior.

              In you, our Lord the Holy Spirit, is marvelous and plenteous grace.

All           You are our clothing; for love you wrap us and embrace us.

Presider         You are our maker, our lover, our keeper.

All           Teach us to believe that by your grace 

                     all shall be well,

              and all shall be well,

              and all manner of thing shall be well.

--Dame Julian of Norwich