Pulling Back the Veil: Sermon for the Feast of the Transfiguration, August 6, 2023

When I was a kid, my mother bought me a little microscope at a hobby shop in Southland Mall, and a set of glass slides. This was pretty awesome as a gift, because it reminds me that I have ALWAYS been a nerd. I mean really, how many little six-year old kids are thrilled with the gift of a microscope? Dolls I could take or leave, except my Mrs. Beasley doll, but I used that microscope for the next three years to look at all kinds of things—blades of grass, creek water, butterfly wings, and, my favorite, my own blood. That was a trip. It was amazing how something that looked one way with the unaided eye looked completely different with the aid of some magnification and some light.

Magnification and light also were at work in the telescope my brother got about the same time with books and books of S and H green stamps—remember them? This was right about the time of the later moon landings, too. We would train that telescope on the moon, hoping that we could actually see the astronauts walking on the lunar surface. The cheap telescope my family could afford really was not nearly capable of that amount of magnification and resolution, but we still would see some of the features of the moon more clearly than we ever had before. We also saw that some of the things we thought were stars were actually planets!

I actually experienced objects differently once my knowledge of them had been changed through a shift in perception. I became aware- and for a little kid, weirded out—by the idea that that blade of grass was made up of thousands of green cells that looked like bricks, and that my blood wasn’t just red liquid but was made up of all kinds of weird round things floating in it. My mother never again had to tell me to not swallow pond water after I saw all the weird little critters like water fleas and bacteria flailing around in a drop of it.

Those experiences with the microscope and the telescope completely transformed my perception of the natural world. Microscopes and telescopes don’t just magnify light, they remind us that our world is so much more complex than what we see as we take things for granted in the hurry-scurry of our lives. And that is infinitely more true about the life of faith in God, as the Transfiguration reminds us.

It’s like that engraving on the side mirrors on your car: “Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear.” Things are really NOT as they appear. They are greater. And if that is true about a blade of grass, that is abundantly true about Jesus.

I’m not one who tends to hold with the idea that God “gives” us experiences for a reason. I’m more inclined to think that, later on, we attach the reason to the experience, particularly if the experience was difficult at the time we went through it, like when someone you thought was a friend betrays you, or someone takes a dislike to you for no discernible reason.

I will admit that I found a great saying about that hanging on a plaque in an Ace hardware store a few years back. It said, “There are two reasons why people are in your life-- to be a blessin’, or to be a lesson.” That saying made me laugh, but it once again makes a point about perspective, as well as about learning how to deal with challenges in our lives that can seem to make no sense. I do think we comfort ourselves or allow ourselves to move on in life by making meaning wherever we have an experience that puzzles or frightens us. But the experience of the Transfiguration IS given to us as both a blessing and a lesson. Taking it seriously invites us to open our minds to the understanding that whatever we think of Jesus as the Son of God, he, and God, are far greater than whatever understanding we have.

In today’s gospel reading, we see one of the most astounding perception-shifting passages in the Bible, and that is saying something. Jesus has been hinting to the disciples that he is more than what he seems to be, but they don’t get it. And let’s be fair—why should they? There certainly hasn’t been anyone like Jesus before.

The last few weeks, we’ve been hearing Jesus trying to encourage us to shift our perceptions with his parables. He’s been telling us outrageous stories that were deliberately exaggerated and extravagant in describing the abundant, profligate generosity, mercy, and grace of God. To remind us that no matter how amazing we think God is, God is far beyond what our imaginations can conceive.

Now we flip to this account from Luke, and we are shown an unaccountable, fantastic event that tears at the fabric of our understanding of reality. What if WE are also being invited to have our perception transfigured, so that we can live our most fulfilled, most amazed lives by perceiving the glory of God in our midst? 

Have you ever had such an experience? Felt just a brush of God's glory spread over you and make you feel fully alive?

That is exactly what God’s presence in our lives does. God approaches us over and over to pull our perception up out of the puny horizons of our meager striving to see that there is something greater on just beyond the horizon of our limited sight. What if we allowed ourselves to be right alongside Jesus’s friends and be blown away by the wonders of God’s presence in our lives all around us, instead of simply trying to engage in a transaction with God to save our souls but otherwise leave us alone to do as we please?

Their perception of Jesus shifts, and suddenly they see him more for who he really is, both human AND divine, the very things we drone through about believing, without thinking too much about it, every week in the Nicene Creed. Sounds simple when you say it, but it is obvious from a careful listening to the gospel that the Christians of Matthew’s time were still struggling to figure out who exactly Jesus is, just as we also are all these hundreds of years later. Listen to how raw and fragmented the parts of the story are, and how little explanation there is. They thought they knew Jesus, as frustrating as his speaking in parables and answering questions with questions could be. But here in the Transfiguration we are reminded that he is far more.

Just like with Moses, if we are really confronted with even a glancing blow of encounter with God’s glory, it overwhelms us. So we allow—and even seek out-- a veil to be placed between the true fabric of reality in God’s universe, and our everyday existence. But in doing so, we also make it easier to ignore the everyday wonders of God’s presence in our lives. We end up being comfortable—but also blind.

It doesn’t help that the story depicts Jesus as changing. It’s important to realize that Jesus was-- and is-- as he appeared at that moment all along. Only the veil between his two natures was more forcefully pulled aside at that moment. Rather than saying that Jesus has changed, it’s more precise to say that the perception of Jesus is changed by this experience on the mountain. The perception we have of Jesus as a wisdom teacher and faith-healers is expanded by this glimpse into his true nature as the Son of God. And Peter’s there to see it all—kind of showing him what is really meant by his proclamation of Jesus as the Messiah. The glory of God that exists on the other side of the veil is real.

In the 60s and 70s, there was a lot of effort made by certain theologians to try to discover what they called “the historical Jesus,” and by that they meant they one whose presence could be verified by actual documentary evidence. Of course, what happened as this quest progressed was a stripping away of all of the things that would have made Jesus anything other than a first century Jewish peasant, and often people weren’t left with very much to actually believe in about Jesus. That’s why it is good to remind ourselves that we are engaged not in a scientific experiment, but in a quest of faith throughout our lives—not that there is anything wrong with scientific experiments mind you, because I am a BIG fan of science. Don’t misunderstand me. But science and faith sometimes do not ask the same questions. Science asks “what?” and “how?” But faith asks “what does it mean?” and “how do we live faithfully?” and “what is good?”

So what does the Transfiguration mean? What the disciples saw in this experience will never be fully captured in words or descriptions, or explained by science, probably. But one thing that is implied by this story is that Jesus is not merely a human being, limited to a human lifespan, but he is the fulfilling of the law and the prophets—that’s what is suggested by the appearance of Moses, the law-giver, and Elijah, the greatest of prophets. Jesus is the Christ, not just a dust-covered Jewish peasant and prophet.

The Transfiguration is not just the story of a magic trick. And I believe it is NOT a parable. I believe it actually occurred so to remind us of the amazing reality of God’s presence and glory all around us—even in a blade of grass or a drop of water—or the real love that God has for each and every one of us, puny as we are. And that can be overwhelming. We need tiny doses of that sort of thing at a time. That’s why, at the end of the story, Jesus does that most human thing of all to bring his friends back from their amazement—he touches them with his hand, reminding them that he is ALSO still their pastor and friend. And so he does for us today. 

Open your eyes to see beyond the veil, unafraid, for the same Christ who dazzles with God’s glory is the same Christ who loves us.

Amen.


Preached at the 505 on August 5 and the 10:30 Principal Holy Eucharist at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville.


Readings:
Exodus 34:29-35
2 Peter 1:13-21
Psalm 99 or 99:5-9
Luke 9:28-36

Created for Wonder: Sermon for the Feast of the Ascension (transferred)

There are a variety of images of the Ascension that have been visualized by artists throughout the centuries, and they range from straightforward illustrations from one of the readings we just heard, to the somewhat weird and then to the sublime. 

Icons are usually pretty straightforward: Disciples gathered around, Jesus rising to heaven, maybe a rainbow breaks out. Weird ones show just Jesus’s feet dangling in the top center of the picture, focusing on the comically awe-struck faces of the disciples. But the sublime ones express the mystery that is at the heart of the Ascension in a way that promoted thought and wonder.

One of my favorite images of the ascension of Christ is one by Salvador Dali, painted in 1958. It’s actually called Ascension: Pieta. This is not one of his stranger paintings with crutches and melted watches, or impossibly spindly, toothpick-legged horses or robotic humanoid figures.

This one is hyper-realistic. Christ is depicted floating directly over the viewer’s head, so you see bare feet, thighs, ribcage expanded like a diver getting ready to plunge, arms outstretched, hands powerfully flexed, straining and grasping at the air. Jesus’s chin is pointed skyward. The feet are smudged; Jesus’s time walking with the disciples is over.

But this diver is plunging upward, upward into the center of perhaps the nucleus of a cell, but more probably the center of an atom. See, this painting was inspired by a dream he’d had years before, soon after mankind first began creating atomic weapons. Dali depicts Jesus entering the nucleus of the atom, literally becoming one with all, part of the building block of the universe, which is actually a beautiful way of thinking about God using a scientific metaphor. Dali’s Christ turns thus bodily transforms a figure of destruction into a hope for new creation and unity. 

The "pieta" part of Dali's vision shows Dali’s wife Gala posing as the Jesus’s mother Mary, looking down on the world, weeping; knowing how her son has suffered and continues to struggle against the evil in the world. Yet even here the risen Christ, on his way to heaven, acts to unify with what we have used all our vanity and skill to break apart, offering to bring peace where we have unleashed destruction. Dali uses the Ascension to insist on the inherent unity of faith with science, and of Creator and creation, with Christ as the mediator.

Given that the Feast of the Ascension is about Jesus leaving his disciples and ascending to heaven, one might wonder, first of all, how this is something that should be celebrated, and whether anyone in their right minds can actually believe it happened at all. I can’t tell you how many times I have seen sarcastic pictures of Jesus dressed like an astronaut noting that, unless he obtained warp speed, even after 2,000 years he would still be zooming through the space in the Milky Way, our own galaxy.

The meaning and truth of the Ascension, or any biblical account, does not depend upon whether writers 2,000 years ago could describe what they experienced and witnessed with scientific precision. The Bible was never meant to be a scientific text—nor was it ever meant to be used to oppose or contradict science, reason, or knowledge. Whether in theology or in literature, great stories can expose deep truths about ourselves and our world even using fictional events and characters. The beauty of the Anglican strand of Christianity is that most of us are quite willing to imaginatively engage with both science and faith, and see them as complementary.

For instance, we no longer believe in a three-layered cosmos, with the Earth surrounded by waters and held up by pillars. And hopefully most of us have abandoned the idea that the Earth is flat too. Hopefully! 

We now know our galaxy alone has 50 galaxies within it, with maybe as many as 100 billion stars, most with their own systems, and that there are possibly 200 billion galaxies in the observable universe. That we know of right now. Where “heaven” is in relationship to all that is not a fruitful line of inquiry for most of us.

But that doesn’t mean that the Ascension is untrue. It is true in what it expresses—that Jesus lives, and is available to all of us and seeks out relationship with all of us that we may change the world. While in his earthly ministry, as a human he accepted certain limitations. He couldn’t be in two places at once, for instance, and so his ministry was limited to a small part of the world. Even in his resurrected body, he was still limited to this constraint until his ascent.

It's funny—we supposedly live in a scientific age, but most people’s actual knowledge of science, mine included, is not that great. Yet we use the tools of science to assault anything that threatens our own assumptions. We are now at the point when people simply block themselves off from information they don’t like—a perversion of not just the so called scientific revolution, but the tactic of tyrants and despots throughout history.

Yet God created us for wonder. And that’s part of what faith is all about.

So what might we take from the Ascension that would have meaning in our own lives? There’s enough there for a book (or many). It is about the uniting of creation with God, the completion of the unification of human with deity that began with Jesus’s entry into the world and continues after his return to God. It is the same mystery we celebrate every time we prayer together the Eucharistic prayer and unite ourselves with the ongoing heavenly banquet before God’s throne.

The Ascension is a mystery.

WHAT heaven is, and the kingdom of God is, is what Jesus came to us to reveal— and, as our scriptures today remind us for us then to reveal to the world. And he was clear that it was not a place as a state of existence beyond life and death. He was clear that it IS a state of existence that we could and do participate in, seeking it, working for it, NOW.

Heaven, the kingdom of God, is now—where peace, justice, equality, communion, compassion, generosity, abundance, grace, sacrifice, the common good, empathy—otherwise known as love in action-- reign. And we are called to help exemplify that and build that with our voices, our actions, our advocacy, our time, our choices, and our very lives.

And where Hell is now, where violence, injustice, oppression, hatred, contempt, deprivation, want, fear, selfishness, destruction, and cruelty—otherwise known as evil and sin, from individual to systemic-- reign. And we are called to resist that not just with “thoughts and prayers,” but with our voices, our actions, and our advocacy, our time, our choices, and our very lives.

That’s where Jesus’s Ascension comes in. The Ascension is the fulfillment of the Incarnation. In Jesus’s birth, God entered time and history. In the Resurrection, Jesus defeats death. In the Ascension, humanity is taken into the Godhead, for the Incarnate One sits at the right hand of God in his humanity and well as his divinity. Creation becomes one with Creator.

Jesus returns to God, the first resurrected one, completing the work in incarnation, in which humanity and creation become physically, truly one with God. Through Christ we are empowered by the Holy Spirit to witness to the Good News of God’s dream for us. Through Jesus’s Ascension, he is no longer rooted to any one place but becomes available to all as a living, loving presence in each of our lives. Through Jesus’s Ascension, the focus of Jesus’s followers moves from “What must we do to be saved?” to “What can we do to serve God and each other?” Inward to outward. From Jerusalem throughout the world.

Jesus’s leave-taking as necessary for us to continue to grow toward spiritual adulthood and fuller discipleship. Jesus promises he will NOT leave us orphaned, as we heard in our gospel reading last weekend; but he also commissions us to carry on his work in the world as both individual disciples and as a community known as the Church. Jesus honors us by placing the task of witnessing to him and his gospel in our hands.

We are not called by Jesus to stand looking up. We are called by Jesus to look around. To look around, to see the wounds of the world, wounds human hands have inflicted all too often and human silences have made worse. We are then called to look within, to look within our hearts and to the very atoms of our bodies and all creation, where Christ longs to dwell. To look within, and then around again, and see the wonder of the intricacies of creation, signposts of God’s love that is also embedded into the very atoms of this world.

The great 20th century poet and songwriter Bob Dylan underwent a religious conversion in the 1980s, and became a Christian. He wrote a song that combines this acknowledgement of the sinfulness and the beauty that is woven through our existence. It’s called "Every Grain of Sand:"

In the time of my confession, in the hour of my deepest need
When the pool of tears beneath my feet flood every newborn seed
There's a dying voice within me reaching out somewhere
Toiling in the danger and in the morals of despair

Don't have the inclination to look back on any mistake
Like Cain, I behold this chain of events that I must break
In the fury of the moment, I can see the master's hand
In every leaf that trembles, in every grain of sand

Oh, the flowers of indulgence and the weeds of yesteryear
Like criminals, they have choked the breath of conscience and good cheer
And the sun beat down upon the steps of time to light the way
To ease the pain of idleness and the memory of decay

I gaze into the doorway of temptation's angry flame
And every time I pass that way I always hear my name
Then onward in my journey, I come to understand
That every hair is numbered like every grain of sand

I have gone from rags to riches in the sorrow of the night
In the violence of a summer's dream, in the chill of a wintery light
In the bitter dance of loneliness fading into space
In the broken mirror of innocence on each forgotten face

I hear the ancient footsteps like the motion of the sea
Sometimes I turn, there's someone there, at times it's only me
I'm hanging in the balance of a perfect finished plan
Like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand.(1)


Yes, we can see the heartbreak of this world. But we can also see the wonder. Then go, empowered by love, and BE Christ’s own hands and heart to heal and reconcile. Because we know we are not alone.

The point is, we are not supposed to just stand there as Jesus ascends, gazing up at heaven, waiting for God to “do something.” We are commissioned to go do something—lots of things—ourselves in ministry to the world. We can do this because we know that God, Trinity and Unity all at once, is still with us within us, in every bone and sinew and atom, challenging us, inspiring us, urging us to practice resurrection in every thing we do.

Today, we celebrate the risen and ascended Christ, risen to his glorification so that he can intercede for ALL of us, risen, but never gone, never leaving us alone. And we can look around this creation that God tenderly created and continues to love and treasure, and be filled with wonder and awe. And then joyfully, filled with wonder, to take up Jesus’s call to witness, to reconcile, to heal, with every blessed, sacred atom of our beings.

Amen.

Preached at the 505 on May 20, and at the 8:00 and 10:30 am Holy Eucharists at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville.

Readings:

Acts 1:1-11 

Psalm 93

Ephesians 1:15-23

Luke 24:44-53

Citations:

1) Bob Dylan, "Every Grain of Sand," from the album Shot of Love, 1981.

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

The Stone of Witness: Speaking to the Soul, July 28, 2022

Joshua said to all the people,
“See, this stone shall be a witness against us;
for it has heard all the words of the Lord that he spoke to us… "- Joshua 24:27a

 

This pale stone from St. Columba’s Bay
had lain beneath pilgrim feet for a thousand years before
singing its way to my notice; its delicate web of
fine green tracings draws the eye into the stone, its heft
surprising for a marble-cool thumbprint. Glossy
and silky to the touch, it bears witness

to the caress of tides and the melancholy
wandering of saints. What prayers has it heard
from all who have passed this way—what prayers
can I whisper to it as it slides between my fingers?

Two billion years it tumbled
to the ebb and flow of windswept tide.
From its holy home it now resides
in my pocket most days, a traveler and thus a stranger,
honed by the caress of the sea.

 

And now I recognize the toddler wisdom
in filling one’s pockets
with treasures from the ground: they witness
to the loving embrace of this Earth
carrying us tenderly around the Sun, grounding us
in wonder and awe, bearing testimony
to the holiness arching up beneath our feet.

Attention, Astonishment, Witness: Homily for Ash Wednesday

 

Some might find it ironic about the gospel reading for today—to hear Jesus warn against disfiguring our faces when many of us are getting ready for the imposition of ashes. On the surface, it would seem that we are engaging in exactly the kind of grandstanding that Jesus is warning about. But when we have the ashes placed upon our foreheads, the purpose is to remind US that we are entering a penitential season, and that since we are ashes, it is important to live our lives in the most faithful way possible.

But also, Jesus spoke at a time when big shows of piety were often put to work for gain in social status or influence, because religious performance was something most people took for granted. And while many people nowadays may do the first part of that last sentence—putting on a show of their supposed religious affiliation, those numbers are getting smaller and smaller each year all across the West. For many of us, walking around all day with a sign of a cross on our foreheads makes us stand out in a different way in an ever-secularizing world.

It's not about showing off. It IS about what you most treasure and proclaim in your life.
The late, beloved American poet Mary Oliver, in her poem “Sometimes,” offered seven linked poems together. Right at the fulcrum, at number 4, she offered these instructions for living a life:

Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.

I am convinced that those are also the instructions for discipleship:

Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.

Attention. Astonishment. Witness.

So let’s start with paying attention right now. 

Just where did those ashes come from that we will soon have pressed into our brows? They came from the palms that we waved on Palm Sunday, ten months ago. They were once young fronds on a palm tree, and then we blessed them and waved them as we re-enacted Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem a week before his trial and crucifixion. Then they sat and dried out for almost a full year. Eventually the dried out remnants were collected, and then they were burned. A match was lit, and light and heat were released from the gases that remained in the palms from the materials they had absorbed from the ground during their life on the tree. They were then ground up, and mixed with the same chrism that we use when we anoint people at their baptisms and at their confirmations. Oil and ashes. Light and heat. And a human touch to press them onto our foreheads—one soul to another.

So what is the astonishing thing about this? We are reminded that we came from the dust and we return to the dust. That sounds dreadful—until you consider that the ash and dust that we are marked with contains atoms which resonate in you, me, everyone and everything, everywhere. The elements that make up that dust were in that palm frond and in that tree and in its roots, but have also been here all along in the billions of years since the Earth’s creation. And those elements were deposited here and fused together to create this beautiful planet, born from the explosions of stars halfway across the galaxy. As Joni Mitchell sang, “We are stardust….” That is indeed astonishing, and it reminds us that here at the start of Lent we are called to recognize the acknowledge the way that this common heritage makes us all one. Especially as the drums of war beat right now across eastern Europe in Ukraine, what could be more astonishing than that bold statement of fact? We are all dust, and we are therefore all one with each other and with all that is.

And then, that mark on our foreheads is part of us telling about it. We are not called to come to church merely to feed ourselves or tend to our own needs. We are called to TELL the world about what we have encountered in Jesus. We are called to let that black smudge on our foreheads be not just an acknowledgement of our finitude, our own mortality, but our own encounter with the love of God as it became human and mortal, just like us, to show us how to live a fully human life—one of love and concern for others, and faithfulness to our God.

And so how does Mary Oliver demonstrate that sense of attention, astonishment, and witness? Now that we have looked at the balancing point, let’s hear the poem in its entirety:

1.

Something came up
out of the dark.
It wasn’t anything I had ever seen before.
It wasn’t an animal
or a flower,
unless it was both.

Something came up out of the water,
a head the size of a cat
but muddy and without ears.

I don’t know what God is.
I don’t know what death is.

But I believe they have between them
some fervent and necessary arrangement.

2.

Sometimes
melancholy leaves me breathless…

3.

Water from the heavens! Electricity from the source!
Both of them mad to create something!

The lighting brighter than any flower.
The thunder without a drowsy bone in its body.

4.

Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.

5.

Two or three times in my life I discovered love.
Each time it seemed to solve everything.
Each time it solved a great many things
but not everything.
Yet left me as grateful as if it had indeed, and
thoroughly, solved everything.

6.

God, rest in my heart
and fortify me,
take away my hunger for answers,
let the hours play upon my body
like the hands of my beloved.

Let the cathead appear again-
the smallest of your mysteries,
some wild cousin of my own blood probably-
some cousin of my own wild blood probably,
in the black dinner-bowl of the pond.

7.

Death waits for me, I know it, around
one corner or another.
This doesn’t amuse me.
Neither does it frighten me.

After the rain, I went back into the field of sunflowers.
It was cool, and I was anything but drowsy.
I walked slowly, and listened

to the crazy roots, in the drenched earth, laughing and growing.


This is our chance to repent. I know that word makes many of us wince and edge away. So let’s try to rephrase it. This is our chance to re-center ourselves, not just for forty days but for each moment. 

Lent calls us to attention, astonishment, and witness. Lent calls us to see the potential rather than the dreariness and horror of pandemic and now war, to look for the beauty and unity among ourselves and all God’s sparkling mysterious creation placed here for our support and care. Lent calls us to proclaim, to tell, to be truthful and reliable in our witness to God’s love by embodying God’s love. I don’t know about you, but I have never needed that kind of Lent more than right now. A Life-giving Lent. A Lent of slowing down and inviting ourselves to wonder and gratitude. A Lent that calls us to stand for right and honor and compassion no matter what the price tag. Lent calls us not to more suffering and uncertainty, but to holiness, which is ALWAYS within our range of choices.

Lent is not a season to be endured, but a gift of insight into what we really should treasure. It is in the everyday world that we live, and we need to make our faith not just a Sunday faith or a Lenten discipline but a part of a living and breathing. Some call this mindfulness, and it is such a wonderful concept. 

Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.

Preached at the 7 pm AshWednesday service, online and in person, at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, MO.

Readings:

• Joel 2:1-2,12-17
• 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10
• Matthew 6:1-6,16-21
• Psalm 103:8-14

Attention, Amazement. Devotion: Speaking to the Soul, January 28, 2021

“They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, ‘What is this? A new teaching—with authority!”—Mark 1:27


Even though it is annual meeting season, and like many of us, I am busier than a moth in a mitten, I also realized at the end of December that I was absolutely being worn out by the stresses and strains of the COVID pandemic. I needed some little thing for me.

So I promised myself that I would read for pleasure every day for at least 20 minutes. There were plenty of books piled around the house, but many of them were more for my vocation than just for fun or for savoring. So I decided to start reading a book of essays by the poet Mary Oliver entitled Upstream, because I have started writing poetry again—haltingly. Her insights into the creative process are delightful. But within the first thirty pages, I was stopped in my tracks by this sentence:

Attention is the beginning of devotion.

I’ve been turning that small sentence over and over in my head the way your turn a smooth river rock over and over in your hand or in your pocket, tucked away. The more I thought about it, the more the words rang true.

When we were children, the thing we yearned for most was attention from those we admired: our parents, or older cousins or neighbors. When we became the big kids, we noticed little kids wanting the same from us. Hopefully we kindly obliged as much as we had been obliged when we ourselves were small.

Likewise, when we were small, many of us fastened upon often the most ordinary things that completely fascinated us. Chin propped on hands, watching the orderly dotted line of ants moving in and out of an anthill. Searching through the day for a four-leaf clover, and along the way noticing the variations in the edges, tones, and patterns on all the rejected clover-leafs. Watching the industrious uncoiling of the tongues of sulphurs, Monarchs, or blues as they competed with the bees for the clover or drank from the fallen, exploded sandplums under the trees. Learning how to tamp down your natural reaction when a bee landed on you until you could allow one to crawl across your hand with no fear because you know how not to startle it.

I remember thinking how amazing it was that this bee would have visited this flower, and I would never have known it were I not here to see and notice it right at that moment—and that all around the world, there were millions of bees contemplating millions of clover flower that I would never get to see. I became aware of how many hundreds of bees would visit this patch of clover in my backyard every day, whether I was there to observe them or not, and then later I was given a piece of wild honeycomb by my Dad’s mother, whom we called One Granny, and saw where the bees’ destination as they flew away from me was, and marveled at how they could help create such sweetness from flowers that weren’t particularly pretty or sweet. I learned that bees made honey, but butterflies did not, nor did they make butter.

I learned to start paying attention. And certainly that started me on the path of devotion to creation in to the majority of all its quadrillions of living creatures (not so fond of cockroaches or grubs or water snakes, all of which gave me the heebie-jeebies, to be honest). But I learned something else: the path to devotion ran straight through a way-station called amazement. I was young, and therefore brave enough to be openly amazed and filled with wonder. I didn’t care if that amazement could be mocked by others as being naïve—I was lucky enough not to even know that some people sought to be above amazement, thinking it made them look knowledgeable and worldly.

And as I listened to Bible stories read to me by my mother, I began to notice when in the Bible it stated that a character was amazed, such as this Sunday, when we hear still in chapter 1 of Mark’s gospel how Jesus’s teaching and healing amazed those in the synagogue who witnessed them.

I like to think of the joy they felt—Mark’s gospel doesn’t have Jesus’s hometown crew them turning on him with a “Just who do you have the nerve to think you are” fury. Instead, the crowds seem genuinely open to the possibility of something new coming from the most unlikely of people. I imagine them going back to their homes and telling the story over and over again to their family, and watching their kindred’s eyes fill with wonder as they themselves open to the possibility of seeing something new. Something they might not have noticed was new had they not been paying attention.

That attention is the beginning of all Epiphany stories, in fact, and it is steeped in the willingness to surrender to wonder and amazement, no matter how foolish it might seem to indulge in hope in a society that seeks to crush our imaginations and dull our senses. And I imagine that was why some were willing to abandon their shovels and their lathes and their nets, and follow Jesus out into a world that needed to be shaken to attention. To be brought back to amazement. And led to devotion.

This was first published at Episcopal Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on January 28, 2021.

Prayer, day 2841: Inspired by Caedmon's Hymn

O God the Maker, whose creation
brings forth stuttering praises of awe and wonder
from the untutored tongues of your children,
our hearts overflow with your marvelous love.

Holy One, you weave the silken tapestry of heaven,
glorious to drink in and refresh our faith,
spread overhead like the canopy of a mighty oak
drawn anew to contemplate the depth of your wisdom.

Our feet firmly planted among the grasses,
our eyes lifted to the spangled expanse
of the roof of the world You have made, World-Warden;
we stretch heavenward like tender saplings.

You have fashioned this Earth as our home,
and made it holy by the work of your fingers
for all to rejoice in your bounty.

Gratitude and wonder are the foundation of our prayer,
surging up like a spring of water from our souls.

And now, O Creator,
gather our swirling thoughts
within the bounds of your mercy,
and grant your blessing upon us,
and all who turn their hearts to your light.

Amen.

Prayer 2655

Almighty, Eternal One,
we lift our hearts to you in hope:
fill us with your grace and lovingkindness,
that we may be witnesses to the world and beacons to your truth.

Your generous hand upholds us all,
O Great and Beautiful Mystery:
Your steadfast love is the foundation of all that is,
and we praise You and bless you with grateful voices.

The marvels of your creation dazzle our eyes,
and everywhere we look
we see the intricate work of your fingers,
O Foundation Wisdom and Truth.

May we stand in wonder in the paths of your compassion,
and humbly seek to embody your love, Lord Christ,
walking reverently upon the earth,
as companions in love and faithfulness.

Merciful One,
strengthen the hand and hearts of the healers.
Grant your protection
to all who place themselves in harm's way
for the sake of others,
and all whose needs we lift before You as we pray.

Amen.

Prayer 2611: Prayer for Sheltering in Place

We bow before you, 
O Love that Sustains the Universe,
and offer our hearts
to be filled by your presence.
Make our hearts a holy habitation, O Holy One,
a living sacrifice, 
that we may be anointed by your Spirit.

The Earth your footstool,
the heavens your tapestry of light,
the smallest seed and the mightiest baobab,
the pinwheel of birds
gathering food by your providence,
the beating hearts of loved ones in companionship--
You have made them all, O Wisdom Eternal,
and your wonders whirl before our dazzled eyes.

Still our rushing heedlessness,
that we may give glory to You, Blessed Savior,
and lay our hearts bare to receive your Word
in joy and gratitude.

This day is your gift, O God;
may we center ourselves
in each moment
by your grace,
for You are our steadfast help and stay.

Bend near to those who seek your face, Blessed Jesus,
that we may see you everywhere we look,
from our rising to our resting.
Anoint us to your service, we humbly pray,
and grant your blessing to those we now name.

Amen.

written on the first day a stay at home order was placed over St. Louis City and County

Prayer 2581

Almighty God,
whose Love came down to us
in the gift of your Son
to lead us to truth,
we bow before You in prayer.

Send your Spirit of Peace and Wisdom
to pull back that which veils our hearts,
that we may stand before You in thankfulness.

We have been marked as your own, O God:
may we lift up our voices in unceasing praise. 
Hold us fast within your safekeeping,
O Rock of Salvation,
and guide us into holy fellowship as your children.

Bless us and preserve us, O God,
and give ear to the prayers of those we now name.

Amen.

Prayer 2558: In awe and wonder

Holy, Holy, Holy Lord,
gathered within your embrace
we arise to greet the beauty of this day,
eager to walk in love and faithfulness,
led by the light, grace, and reconciling example of Christ.

Almighty Creator,
You have woven the night sky and morning clouds 
into a tapesty of beauty, 
reminding us of your promise of faithfulness-- 
You who call the stars by name 
and have inscibed each of us on your hand. 

Sustain us with your word, Blessed Jesus, 
that our hearts be transformed in love and compassion, 
that we tenderly care for each other 
in witness to all You have done for us. 

Renew us, O Holy Spirit, 
in generosity and lovingkindness, 
that we may see and know our mutual dependence 
as one body, one spirit, one creation. 

Merciful One, pour out your grace and healing 
upon all for whom we pray.

Amen.

Prayer 2553: Inspired by Psalm 19

O God, our hearts rise to you
carried aloft on the dawn chorus of birds:
may our praise song resound forever
as night whispers its secret dreams to the rising light.

By your wisdom and art
You have made the tapestry of the heavens;
the firmament is filigreed, a tracery of constellations,
spangled and aflame with light, visible and invisible,
to testify to your handiwork,
O Creator and Lover of All.

In awe and delight,
may our hearts burst forth in service to You,
O God of Splendor,
for like the heavens we too are marvelously made,
and You care for us and hold us safe,
nurturing us and calling us to innocence and truth.

Save us from the presumption of sin,
from the arrogation of your will for ours;
may we seek the good of each other humbly,
in willing assent to your commandments.

And so, O Holy One,
may we walk gently upon the earth this day,
companions in your Way of Reconciliation and Hope.
Lift up the hearts of all who are troubled,
O God Our Portion and Shield,
and soothe the cares of those whom we now name.

Amen.

Prayer 2393

In stillness,
let us open our hearts to the Infinite One,
whose love is the foundation of all that is
from particle and wave
to humpbacks and aspen groves
to galaxies whose dance through space
sings out glory and wonder.

May we center ourselves
in the hope of shalom for all:
peace, contentment, plenty, well-being, wholeness,
and may we work to make that a reality
in word and in deed. 

May we remember
that you have called us to be a priestly people,
embodying the way of Jesus in the world,
loving, reconciling, mending,
living in loving integrity and hope.

Merciful God, in your tender compassion
bend near and hear 
the whispered sighs and thankful songs
of your beloveds
as we lay bare the depths of our souls before you.

Amen.

Prayer 2373

Wondrous Creator,
all that is has been hallowed
and shaped by your loving hand:
help us to see the wisdom and beauty
You have woven into the fabric of creation,
and knit into the bones of all living beings,
from rock and tree to stranger and friend.
We are tiny seedlings seeking your light,
O Holy and Blessed Maker:
make us mighty redwoods in the grove off your kingdom,
interconnected at our roots by love and faithfulness.
Help us to grow upright with integrity, Blessed Savior,
generously giving comfort to others
like the cool shade of a glade at noonday.
Lead us, O Spirit of God,
to stretch our arms ever toward each other,
and to be a blessing for the world.
Grant your mercy, O God,
on all the concerns we bear in our hearts,
and grant your peace to those for whom we pray.

Amen.