Into Your Hands: Speaking to the Soul, April 7, 2022

One of the big blessings of the pandemic was being forced to worship online. Yes, I said it. It was something that I suspected we should be doing, but I could never justify the time, or find the energy, or come up with the money. Nor did we know where or how to start. Then along came COVID, and our bishop shut down worship the Thursday before Holy Week and barred us from the buildings, to keep us safe at home.

And so, using an iPhone 9 with a cracked screen, we began. And one of the first services I thought we could offer during the weeknights was compline. Two nights a week, there was this lovely little ten minute service meant to comfort us in our anxiety and surreal sense of separation. It was a soothing and wonderful way for lay people to stay involved in worship, as they could easily lead it with minimal instruction. A small but wonderfully generous crew of volunteers and I took turns leading these simple prayers. And now two years later, we still host compline online, with new volunteers, and it’s still just as lovely.

Compline offers simplicity. Of the four psalms offered as options, one of them is Psalm 31, verses 1-5. These spare verses address God directly, and with great trust, as one prepares for sleep.

In you, O LORD, have I taken refuge;
let me never be put to shame;
deliver me in your righteousness.
Incline your ear to me;
make haste to deliver me.
Be my strong rock, a castle to keep me safe,
for you are my crag and my stronghold;
for the sake of your Name, lead me and guide me.
Take me out of the net that they have secretly set for me,
for you are my tower of strength.
Into your hands I commend my spirit,
for you have redeemed me,
O LORD, O God of truth.

I can imagine it has been a popular prayer before sleep for millennia—I think back to stories of previous pandemics like the bubonic plague, when people went to sleep praying that they would live through the night—that was how quickly illness could overtake one from that terrible disease. The powerful image of God as the crag and stronghold is solid and sure—found also in Psalms 18 and 71. Contrary to what I had always assumed, a crag is a rocky promontory, NOT a shelter. It’s the kind of place from which people who are afraid of heights should NOT stand. You are safe when standing on a crag, but you feel exposed. You are on solid ground, supported by a massive outcropping of rock. So perfect a metaphor for life in a time of pandemic—that even when you feel vulnerable, God is beneath you, upholding you.

We certain clung to all those promises during the worst of times, didn’t we? And now, as we turn toward Holy Week, I think of Luke’s passion narrative, and of Psalm 31. The last words Jesus breathes from the cross come from Psalm 31:5—“Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”

How many times have I read those words and not remembered the next phrase that follows? Jesus, undergoing one of the most cruel tortures a mind can devise, is not merely announcing his death. He is also expressing his absolute trust in God.

“Into your hands I commend my spirit, for you have redeemed me, O LORD, O God of truth.”

Think on it: As Jesus gives his last breath on the cross in Luke’s gospel, he is still proclaiming his faith and absolute trust in God, even in the depths of his suffering and with his impending death. Jesus is insisting that God is faithful, just at a time when a lot of people would wonder why God has abandoned them. This is very different from the other gospels, and is certainly a source of inspiration for all those who suffer.

The last two years have left many of us feeling raw, exhausted, and exposed. The familiar has been stripped away, along with our certainty that our worship and our liturgies can just tick along from year to year and cycle to cycle. But perhaps at the same time we can give thanks for the clarity that comes from being placed upon the crag, vulnerable and exposed, but also alive to the reality of God’s tender support beneath us. To teach us that we actually do depend on God when we ourselves have been depleted, to feel that we have been tenderly protected and redeemed—rescued from our sins and faults by the grace and protection of our living God.

As we turn toward Palm/Passion Sunday and Holy Week, may we hear anew the promise of those words, whether we are going through a rough hour, or a rough evening, or whether we are seeing the coral glistening of dawn break through the gloom of a long night. Loving Creator, I commend my spirit to You, for You have and always will redeem me, O Lord, O God of truth.



This was first published at Episcopal Journal and Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on April 7, 2022.

Prayer for Easter Thursday, April 7, 2022

Psalm 8

Dawn parts the velvet curtain of night
as we rise from our beds to praise You,
O Creating God:
accept our prayers,
offered in gratitude and humility.
For what are we, that You have made us
just a shade below the angels?

Your fingerprints are revealed
in the sun and moon that soar overhead
even as You place our feet
firmly upon the Earth your hands have molded.
Birds of the air, fish of the sea
all praise you with their entire being:
how can we give you glory and honor?

Place a new song in our mouths and our hearts, O Lord:
let us sing our praises from the deeps of our souls.
Give us a joy in doing your will:
to act justly,
to love mercy,
and walk humbly with You in love, O God.

You have lifted us out of the pit we ourselves have dug;
You have delivered us to abide in your light.
Take us by the hand and lead us for joy;
may your healing radiance shine through us.

Knit us together in justice, reconciliation, and peace,
loving each other as ourselves.
Spirit of Peace,
spread the wings of your redemption and grace
over all who call upon You
our exalted Lord,
our Loving Shepherd,
as we pray.

Amen.

This was first published at Episcopal Journal and Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on April 7, 2022.

Worship, and Love, Embodied: Sermon for Lent 5C

There’s a scene in the sixth Harry Potter movie where the teenaged students, now pursuing advanced electives, have their first potions class. Their new potions master, Professor Slughorn, has three potions brewing for the class as examples, but he doesn’t tell them what they are. When he asks his students for guesses, of course bookworm Hermione Granger knows the answer—she knows them all. She identifies one, a powerful love potion, by its smell, a smell which is different for every person based on what they find attractive. She notes that when she draws near the cauldron holding the love potion, she smells freshly mown grass, new parchment, and spearmint toothpaste (her parents are non-magical folk who are dentists).

What does love smell like to you?

When I was a kid, love smelled like pan-fried steak fingers and fried okra, my favorite meal. It smelled like Old Spice cologne and my dad’s coffee, which was stronger enough to dissolve silverware. It smelled like Cherry ICEEs and the Brahm’s chocolate chip ice cream, but NOT the abominations of circus peanuts or candy corn. When my kids were little, love smelled like a clean diaper and baby lotion and food that was still warm when I ate it. Now that I am older, love smells like a Thistle Farms lavender candle that I light when I pray, in honor of women survivors of the streets and the inspiring ministry of the Rev. Becca Stevens. It smells like incense and sun-warmed tomatoes from the garden and my beloved’s jacket draped over my shoulders.

What does love smell like to you? What does is feel like?

I ask this as our gospel today presents us with one of the most richly sensual depictions of someone caring for Jesus in all of scripture— through our reading we experience a scene of the tenderest of ministrations, redolent with exotic perfume, in a place filled with love and companionship. A place like home—at least the kind of home each of us deserves, a place where people are devoted to each other by bonds of kinship stronger than mere blood ties.

Each of the gospels records an occasion where Jesus is anointed with perfume by a woman—and yet each of the accounts is different. In Matthew and Mark, Jesus is in Bethany, which is only two miles outside of Jerusalem and on the southeastern slope of the Mount of Olives. In three of the gospels the woman is unnamed, but in Luke an added detail is that she is a known sinner. Luke also places this incident much earlier in Jesus’s ministry, in the house of a Pharisee near Capernaum.

Our version from John is different in several aspects: Jesus and his disciples are in Bethany, yes, but at the home of Lazarus and his sisters, just after Jesus has raised Lazarus from the dead. The raising of Lazarus is the seventh of the seven signs in that Gospel—and the one that makes the local authorities determined to kill Jesus. John’s account makes it clear that Jesus is among his friends—friends who are grateful beyond belief for his resurrection of Lazarus from the grave. Perhaps this is as close to having a “home”—and it is just outside of Jerusalem-- that Jesus had.

Our Lenten lectionary does a magnificent job here in terms of sequencing. Last week we were reminded of the extravagance of God’s love and grace in the parable of the Prodigal Son, and here again we have a tale of extravagance. Yet rather than being inwardly directed and selfish, as the prodigal son’s extravagance was, Mary engages in an extravagant act of love—one that is deeply tender and personal. She breaks open a jar of dramatically expensive ointment—one used as a perfume, as incense, as herbal medicine as a sedative—and also for burial preparation.

The drama of this gesture is in its sensory richness: the smell of the perfume fills the entire house, we are told, and that Mary kneels at Jesus’s feet and pours an abundance of the ointment over his feet, wiping away the excess with the hair she lets down, as her family, Jesus, and his disciples look on in a reverent-- or shocked-- silence.

Mary anoints Jesus out of a profound love- it is unlikely that she knew that Jesus’ death on the cross was imminent. Mary’s motive may be to anoint him as Messiah out of gratitude for giving back her brother, which means that she and her sister will not be left exposed and destitute. Her extravagance is shocking—and the fact that she let down her hair, which a woman of that era only did in the presence of her husband—is even more shocking. But this is also the beginning of the second part of John, and at the start of each section, Jesus is anointed, so this anointing shows that Jesus is embarking upon a new phase of his mission. Jesus is presented in John as always being resolute, and matter-of-factly explains that he will soon die.

One of the things I am struck by in contemplating this passage is the reminder to all of us that Jesus had a body—which of course we all know, and kind of take for granted. No, I mean Jesus had a body that was not merely a vehicle or a symbol of his solidarity with us important as that is. But to take seriously Jesus’s full humanity is to realize that Jesus had a body that could feel comfort and pleasure and tenderness as well as undergo fasting and torture and death. Mary seizes the opportunity in the moment to care tenderly for Jesus’s living body. Through her touch she worships Jesus, and offers him gratitude, love and tenderness. A love and tenderness he needs as much as the actual anointing, as we know from our perspective two thousand years later, as we see Jerusalem and Christ’s passion and death looming just two miles and six days away in Jerusalem.

As Jesus speaks of his coming death, I imagine Mary longing to hoard these sensations of the feel of him, as his potential loss looms over those gathered there. And even in our time, we can have photos, and videos, of those we love even after they are gone. But one of the most final losses is the loss of the touch of the ones we love when they have passed away from us. As we look back on this scene from John’s gospel, I think about how Mary must have been so grateful in the days and years that followed that she yielded to this impulse to serve and caress her friend, regardless of cost or scandal or criticism, especially once he was executed on a cross.

This is a fully embodied story. The senses of sight, smell, touch, and taste are all richly engaged. Maybe that’s why some find this scene uncomfortable. After all, we live in a time of great ambivalence about our own bodies. We judge people’s bodies on their height, their shape, whether we think they take adequate care of their bodies. We make snap—and deadly-- judgments about people based on what shade of brown their bodies are, and divide ourselves along color lines, hair types, and nose shape. Our society dominates and regulates the bodies of children and women. We mock the signs of aging bodies and even try to hide or reverse the signs of aging. And the way we depict Jesus gets caught up into all of that, as it is a source of contention to some people to depict Jesus in a way that hasn’t been filtered through two thousand years of northern European art.

These last years of pandemic have been hard on our bodies—at least for most of us. When we went into preventative shut-down, we were deprived of the ability to be with friends and loved ones. We were unable to physically gather and share in the embodied community of the church in the same way we always had—a way we probably took for granted until it was temporarily taken from us. And worse, a sizeable portion of people around us responded not by doing what can be done to prevent illness, but denied the obligation to care for each other if it meant curtailing their freedom or preferences in any way. If anything should have made us aware of how we actually ARE affected by those around us, you would think it would be a contagious, deadly disease. May we ourselves always be better than that.

There’s one discordant note in the entire scene—and that’s when Judas makes his criticism of the extravagance of Mary’s gesture, and we get that often misinterpreted remark about the poor. But we know that Judas had not real concern for the poor. And when Jesus calls us to remember that the poor are always with us, Jesus reminds us that caring for each other and caring for the poor are not an either/or proposition, for the poor are part of us as surely as Jesus’s anointed feet are part of his body. If the poor are always with us, it is because we have already failed to take seriously our obligation to them to see them as part of us rather than separate and different from us. As Brazilian archbishop Halder Camara remarked, “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist.” That kind of attitude towards other children of God is a true impoverishment of spirit—one that denies the unity of all people in heart, mind, and body.

Just as we do with the poor, too often we forget or ignore the reality of Jesus as a human being, who loved, laughed, wept, hungered, thirsted, despaired. We think him aloof to real human emotions, and real human relationships—and the scriptural witness, written for a specific time and place for specific audiences, does not help that. They didn’t need a Jesus who could break a leg or suffer heartbreak. They needed a Jesus who was more-than-human. And certainly, we do too.

BUT Jesus did have a mother he loved, and friends he cared for, and compassion for those who sought his help. He hungered and thirsted. He knew the power of a nap, as the incident in the boat during the storm reminds us. He had a need for solitude even as he engaged in ministry among multitudes, with all its demands.

In this story we are reminded of the importance of the senses, and of the body, as a sign and location of love and of worship. Luckily, we are Episcopalians, and we worship bodily every week—what the comedian Robin Williams famously termed as “pew aerobics.” Stand, kneel, sit; bow, genuflect, present raised hands to receive communion.

Touch is precious. And it is a very finite gift. We can only touch those who are here with us. As I related to you in my rector’s reflection this week. my dad’s touch is one of the things I miss most because there is no way of artificially preserving it. Touch requires vulnerability. At its most loving it expressed safety. Tenderness. Love.

This is a story of true communion. The use of the word “break,” in saying that Mary “breaks open” the jar of ointment and pours it lavishly over Jesus’s feet, reminds us of the extravagance with which Jesus offers himself to us in the Eucharist, where we break the bread, where we “break bread together” and share in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. We speak of being “the Body of Christ,” implying the bold witness of Christ’s visible, tangible presence we are called upon to make in the world.

Mary’s action is an action of love, and an act of worship. Both can be profoundly intimate as well as public. We are therefore reminded that worship itself is an embodied act. But we are also reminded that the greatest way we worship Jesus is to ourselves embody his love, his tenderness, his drive to heal and reconcile and call people together.

The words we say and the stories we tell as we worship urge us to that kind of committed, bodily-engaged life. And so, as we come to worship, whether physically in this space, or watching remotely via broadcast, may we take a moment and breathe, and become aware of the way all of our senses are engaged in worship. May we settle into our bodies as they sit, stand, and move, and be gentle with them and with those around us.

Our bodies are where we meet Jesus, and where Jesus stands in solidarity with us, no matter who we are or what we look like. Our bodies are where Jesus loves us—and where we love Jesus, God, and each other. And we ourselves are called to act as Christ’s physical body in the world each and every day—and the world sees us, and judges Jesus—based on how we embody Jesus’s message—or not.

May we take seriously the proclamation that we are one body, united in Christ. May we remind ourselves of how our bodies are the place we physically meet God and each other. Of the ways they are beautiful, and worthy of care. Of the way they enable us to worship. Of the shared existence we have with one another, and the mutual dependence we have with each other, of our obligations to each other out of the same love that Mary anointed Jesus with the care for each other, and the entire world, generously, physically, tenderly. That is our true worship.

Preached at the 505 Saturday and 10:30 Sunday Eucharists, April 2-3, at St. Martin's Church, Ellisville, MO.

Readings:

Isaiah 43:16-21

Psalm 126

Philippians 3:4b-14

John 12:1-8

At the Feet of Love: Speaking to the Soul for March 31, 2022

Feet are a conduit of love. Of all the possible things. Feet. For me, this makes sense, because feet make me think of my dad.

My father was born just after World War I. He grew to adulthood during the Great Depression, and served in World War II. It should not surprise anyone, then, that he wasn’t exactly big on expressing his tenderer feelings, at least not during my growing-up years. . When he was feeling really content, he would sit on the floor watching football with me and he would reach out and just hold one of my feet. If he though I wasn’t listening, he would whisper, “I love you,” and wiggle my foot a bit as he said it. It was weird, and quirky, and it’s one of the things I miss most about my dad.

It used to be that one seldom saw bare feet in public. But if you do look at the bare feet of an adult, they can tell you a lot about that person. They can be pale or have tan lines. They can be soft, or they can be misshapen and calloused. They can be grimy or clean, pedicured or showing signs of neglect. Structurally, they hold our weight as we balance on a latticework of tiny, delicate bones. They anchor us to this good earth and keep us grounded, and on a warm summer’s morning we can feel the pulse and hum of the earth vibrate through our feet as we stand in the cool, sweet grass.

Feet also can make us self-conscious. Maybe this is why the incidents of foot washing in the Bible are so memorable to us. You have to really love someone to want to wash their feet, much less caress those feet and pour expensive perfume all over them.

So the scene of Mary breaking open her precious alabaster jar and pouring nard all over Jesus’s feet is obviously a scene of great intimacy and love—extravagant, prodigal love. The poet Mary Skevington emphasizes the sumptuous sensual overload from Mary’s action in her poem, “Mary, of Bethany, at your feet a third time:”

Fragrance fills the room, the house, the night,
as more people pour from Jerusalem to you,
to you, who comes to us in our weeping,
who shares our bread with us,
and brings us to such joy as this.

And there are not one, but TWO extravagant gifts we have to contemplate as we look at Mary’s washing of Jesus’s feet with expensive perfume and hair: Mary’s excessive display of devotion and worship, yes—but also Jesus’s example of his obedience to God’s will. His determination to follow the dictates of love to overcome evil become clear in this episode. Those same feet being anointed will carry him from Bethany—which means “the house of the poor”—to Jerusalem and then on to Calvary. Mary takes her place at the feet of love, and reminds us that we are called there too.

Too often, we lose sight that the core of Jesus’s message is love. Too many people—both within and outside of Christianity– think the core of Jesus’s message is about rigid rules of behavior, hellfire and damnation, and sober, self-righteous judgmentalism directed toward others. Sadly that is the public face of Christianity in too much of the society in which we live. Too often we forget the extravagant acts of love that defined Jesus’s interactions with his friends and disciples, and even strangers.

So yes, those feet will be anointed and kissed and wiped with Mary’s beautiful veil of hair. Those same feet are going to carry Jesus to the outskirts of Jerusalem and on to his passion. Isaiah 52 reminds us, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation….”

At this moment, Jesus’ feet straddle the line between earth and heaven, between his ministry and his death upon a cross, and Mary is making those feet ready. Before he is betrayed and handed over to the authorities, Jesus himself is going to show his love for his disciples by washing all of their feet, as a sign that great love also demands great humility and a sense of servanthood.

Jesus comes to bring us a message of love of God and love of neighbor—and that message puts him at odds with the powers of oppression and empire. Jesus’s feet carry God’s good news even today to all of us. With those feet, Jesus leads us from death to life. Sittting at the feet of love is where we, too are anointed to bear the good news of extravagant grace to the world.

This was first published at Episcopal Journal and Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on March 31, 2022.

Coming Home to God: Sermon for Lent 4C

Chapter 15 of Luke’s gospel begins with two other stories right before our gospel passage: the parable of the lost sheep, and the parable of the lost coin:

4‘Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? 5When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. 6And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.” 7Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance.

8 ‘Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? 9When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, “Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.” 10Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.’

The eliminated stories make very clear that all three parables are about rejoicing when the lost is found—for relationships that are restored. The application for our behavior then also has to do with rejoicing over the one who has repented instead of judging them and refusing to forgiven for their mistakes. These stories are about accepting repentance freely, rather than demanding punishment from those who have done wrong so that they “earn” forgiveness.

I think too often when we hear this parable, and many other parables, we want God’s “justice” to mirror human “justice.” And the human “justice system” is not about reforming people; it’s not about reconciling those who have hurt others to those they have hurt. It’s simply about punishing wrongdoers. It’s about responding to the lost coin by locking the remaining one’s into a tighter grip. It’s about writing off the lost sheep as collateral damage. But God’s justice is NEVER about punishment, which is something we all can be grateful for if we acknowledge how God’s grace has worked in our own lives.

We hear three parables in quick succession of seeking and restoring precisely because Jesus is insisting that God is a seeker and a restorer, NOT a punisher.

The younger son has demanded the portion of his inheritance that would have gone to him—when his father died. The outrageous implication here is that he is not willing to wait and work to inherit, but is willing to break up his father’s estate and household in order to live according to his will rather than by his Father’s.

The younger son goes to a distant country—one where there is no sense of obligation to each other, the kind of obligation that is at the heart of the Great Commandment to love God and each other no matter if you know that other person or not. In this country to which the younger son travels there is no concept of living by a covenant of grace, as the laws of the Torah and the New Testament demand. In that place there was no command to love your neighbor. In that place there was no obligation to care for the widow, the orphan, or the poor. In that place there was no concern for the oppressed. As long as you have plenty of resources, you can cruise along. Sounds like the world in which WE live right now. And it’s a place of the heart rather than a particular geographical place. It’s a place where people deny the universal need of all of us for the grace of God.

The older son refuses to enter and resents the feast for the younger son because he is eaten up with the idea that junior has gotten away with something. Yet the father, when he pleads with the elder son to join the feast, assures him that it isn’t going to cost him anything to be glad his brother is back and not dead. I mean, remember, he’s turning down a FEAST. And it will cost him nothing to come in and be glad his brother is still alive, is still capable of redemption.

Nothing but his pride. Nothing but his hard heart.

You know, there’s a reason why there is a common saying, “There but for the grace of God go I.” Instead of being grateful for the fact he has NOT been through what his brother has, instead of being reassured that the same rules of forgiveness and abundant mercy apply to him, he wants to tear down the bonds of love, so sure is he that he will never himself need help.

There’s a name for that. It’s called self-righteousness. And self-righteousness poisons the person who wraps themselves in it. It causes us to be lost in a foreign land of our own bitterness, our own resentment, our own pain where we tell ourselves we have no need for God’s grace, that grace is a safety net only for sinners—forgetting that all sin and fall short of the right relationship with God and their neighbor. We all do.

No, we certainly are all prodigals. We are extravagant when spending our emotional and even spiritual currency on ourselves, rather than realizing that all we have belongs to God. And that leads not to happiness and contentment, much less real joy. It leads, as we see with both sons, to despair, bitterness, ruin.

Notice that with both sons, the parent, who could simply demand obedience, instead goes to them. To the wayward younger son, who has been physically lost, his parent even RUNS to greet him before he is halfway up the street. To the bitter older son, he leaves the feast and pleads with him for a change of heart, from demanding that someone else be punished to being grateful that the same generous, amazing grace and mercy his brother is visibly receiving now is always there for him too. To both sons, the parent offers his love, his assurance to them of how precious they are to him.

But what if the important point is that no matter how far we stray from God, God is always more than willing to call us back, and will start toward already from the halfway point. We don’t have to be able to take the whole journey ourselves, with God as some sort of immovable wall to be scaled. 

No, God’s abundant lovingkindness and grace meets us more than halfway and always calls us to return no matter how truculent we are. St. Augustine claims we are born with a space in our heart that only God can fill—and that we keep searching until we find it. Sometimes, like the kids in Willy Wonka we try to fill that space with other things, cheap substitutes that do not fill our need for connection but instead feed our greed and fears. They will never satisfy. When people have fallen into that kind of thinking, there will NEVER be enough. We see it all the time in our public discourse.

Our hearts are placed in the center of our bodies for efficiency when we think of them as mere pumps. But our spiritual hearts are placed in the center of our bodies to remind us that what is on the surface means little.

Both sons have an affliction of their hearts—their hearts are turned toward themselves rather than outward toward love of God and love of each other. The same affliction that shapes the world in which we live right now. But the cure begins small—one heart at a time. In our own hearts. As former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams states:

It is not that I have a long journey to undertake in order to get to God, but that I have a long journey to my own reality. It is my heart, the centre or source of my own being, that is furthest away from my surface mind and feelings, and pilgrimage is always a travelling to where I am. . . . God is not merely, like the Prodigal’s Son’s father, on the way to us: he is there at the heart. Or: he travels to meet himself in what is always other, eager to recognize his own joy and beauty in the distinctness of what is not God’s self. However we put it—there are countless ways—God’s loving kindness is there ahead of us. Forgiveness is never a matter of persuading God of something but of discovering for myself that there is no distance to be crossed, except that longest journey to that which gives truth and reality to my very self.

What if we heard this story as a story of gratitude for unearned forgiveness? What if we paid attention to the JOY that the finder expresses in each of those three parables, instead of focusing on the bitter whispers of others who expect God to balance out punishment to everyone else on some great heavenly balance sheet so that they can feel better about themselves?

Some of us identify with the younger brother: we have all done thoughtless things. Some of us identify with the father, especially if we have ever thought we lost someone or something precious only to have the joy of restoration take the place of our anticipatory grief. Some of us identify with the older brother, and resent the heck out of anyone who gets a second chance when we think they don’t deserve it.

As you know, I have also been including poetry in our adult forum classes, and while doing my reading, I discovered what is considered to be one of the shortest poems in the English language, so short its title is longer than the poem itself. It is attributed to George MacDonald, called “The Shortest and Sweetest of Songs.” Here it is:

Come.
Home.

As we prepare for the easing of restrictions from these long months of COVID precautions, I hope you hear the promise of the two most beautiful words that lie under our gospel selection from Luke. Those two words were probably in the heart of the father every day his son was gone.

Those two words also have a very practical component in our church life right now, too. As we find a new normal, rather than mourn or resent what we’ve done without, let’s return stronger and more resolute than ever to holding fast to these precious relationships that feed us. Let’s join hands, and give thanks for the amazing grace of those two words: Come Home. Let’s say them to each other, and invite those we know into the warmth and welcome of this place and the knowledge and love of God in Christ.

But as we look over the long journey of the last two years, even when we have felt isolated or alone, remember that God has been beside you, supporting you and reminding you of the abundant, tender care God lavishes upon us, in times of joy and also, even though we might need to reach through the anxiety or numbness, in times of trial.

And all along, we have each other. And as long as we have that, we can hold fast to each other, and return to living into ways old and new that we remain bound within each others’ lives.

Come as you are. Come home to yourself, and the amazing gift of God’s grace and mercy that upholds each and every one of us no matter our circumstances.

Come home.

Preached at the March 26 505 and the March 27 10:30am Eucharist (in person and online) at St. Martin's Episcopal Church in Ellisville, MO.

Readings:

Mary's Word (Feast of the Annunciation): Speaking to the Soul for March 24, 2022

With a sound of distant thunder
the rainbow-eyed stranger
spoke to me. She
called me “favored one,”
and that made me stop in mid-step.
Just this morning I’d been
a beast of burden hauling water
for the entire household
so that my soon-to-be mother-in-law
could weigh again the bargain that had been struck
for my labor, present and future.
I could still hear my father
walking away, his pockets jingling,
the matter settled.

“Favored one.”

And for once in my life
now I was presented a proposal,
just as a dove slid down
a shaft of sunlight, revealing
lilies in the ditch,
more radiant than Solomon
in his rumored glory.

No fool, at first
I didn’t speak, much less
laugh, but
hurried home.

She appeared again
as I was spinning flax into thread--
poppies nodding at her feet,
the lilies this time an offering
shoulders shadowed
beneath star-flecked wings
flexed half-open, ready to depart or remain
at my response.

The frosted fields had just begun to green
after winter’s bony grip slackened, yet
the sweet smell of honeysuckle
and rose swirled improbably (only
in my mind?)
with each incredible word
that pulled the tides of my
presumed future moon-ward:
favored by God,
a son with a name like
light and breath.
Unconditional love,
conditional to human consent.

“Who am I
to contain such grace?” My
heart filled with wonder, mind
reeling with choices that I’d never
held in my grasp before. It was
the kindness there, the honor
that gleamed in the angel’s eyes
that rose over the tattoo of my heart
and tempered wonder to resolve.

The choice was mine to make.

The gates of my assent swung wide.

I startled myself
with the sureness of that leap within
my heart. Yes
to bearing the joy, the questions and pain, yes
to Eternity enclosed and growing
beneath my heart’s tempest and flame,
yet my spirit also hovered as if afloat
on the breath of God
who enters only after
my offered “yes”
--THAT was the Word made flesh.

The pulse within me responded,
I am
the hand
maid of
the Lord
Most High.

Before words formed on my lips,
before the spindle fell
from tingling fingers
and I sighed the song
that would frame my life
and burst loose the narrow orbit
I had once inhabited.

Jesus
Jesus
Jesus

In that instant, I knew too
he would be my son, yet
never mine alone.

Assent brought ascent. My eyes raised
to sizzled rasp of receding wingbeat;
the eddied air swirled and reeled.
The messenger departed
bearing my gift
after she nodded and rose, leaving me
this first treasure of many
for the storehouse of my heart.

This was first published at Episcopal Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on March 24, 2022-- the eve of the Feast of the Annunciation.

© 2022 Leslie Barnes Scoopmire- all rights reserved.

Image: "The Annunciation," John William Waterhouse (British/Italian), 1914

Prayer 3336

Tender Creator,
whose hand has cradled us
through the hours and dreams of the night,
shelter and shepherd us
as we carry your good news into the world this day.

Make us seekers of wisdom,
reflectors of light to those who wander,
companions to those who are isolated.

Make our lives a living prayer of praise and gratitude,
and a testimony to your grace and hope.
Make our hearts a fertile field for your truth
that we may be fruitful in our service
to You and to others, Most Holy God.

Beloved Savior,
the creation is resplendent with your glory,
your abundant love dazzles
from greening trees and children's laughter
and the generous hearts of elders.

Come, Holy Spirit,
endow our spirits with courage and hope,
and place your hand of blessing over those
for whom we now pray.

Amen.

Image: Creation of the World, Lyuva Latskiv, Ukrainian, 2019, oil on gessoed board

Prayer 3334: On the First Full Day of Spring

O God,
as Earth turns in wakefulness
from the slumber of winter
to the rising dawn of spring,
as geese arrow southward overhead,
we too turn our thoughts to home,
the sunlit home we offer us in your kingdom.

Help us gather
beneath your shining countenance.

Help us sing out your love;
let halting harmonies
become intricate tapestries of grateful praise,
for your love is steadfast and true.

May we release the stones of our cares
in the deep well of your abundant grace,
casting all our burdens
upon the promise of your mercy and care.
Teach us to walk in paths of compassion
to share from the bounty we have received
of charity, forgiveness, and holy wisdom.

O God,
cast your finest net beneath our seeking hearts
that we may be gathered when our way turns to wandering
as we long to be drawn
within the sheltering wing of your loving-kindness,
and extend your sheltering hand
beneath those for whom we pray.

Amen.

Giving A Fig-- Sermon for the Third Sunday in Lent, Year C

I suspect that I am not alone in having some questions after that gospel reading, yes? Here are a few that jump out at the outset: What was the incident about the Galileans and the Tower at Siloam? (Answer: No one knows for sure—see below for an hypothesis. But Pilate, for all that he gets treated gently in the gospels for political purposes, was a ruthless despot who would stop at nothing to maintain power, more of a Putin than a reluctant crucifier.)

And in the second half: Why would a landowner plant a fig tree in a vineyard? No, really. It’s like planting asparagus in a hothouse meant for orchids.

But we’ll get back to that. About those tragedies: There are very few historical accounts to support this story, but apparently a group of Galilean men had been worshipping at the altar in Jerusalem, and they had been killed by Roman soldiers, supposedly at the command of Pilate. Their blood had then splashed against the altar, profaning it by mixing human blood with the animal blood that was sprinkled against it ritually. Also around that same time, several pilgrims were killed while worshipping at the Temple when a tower near the pool of Siloam fell on them. What is the point of bringing this up? Two possibilities: those questioning Jesus may want him to explain how bad things happen to good people, or they may be testing Jesus to see if he will denounce Pilate—and thus place himself openly in opposition to Rome.

The fact is, Pilate gets a pass here in this account too—for entirely prudent but political reasons, the gospel writers went out of their way not to blame Rome for anything lest they increase persecution on Christians by the powerful Roman empire, which had just crushed the Jewish people and destroyed the Temple by the time the very first Christian scriptures were written.

But our puzzlement also brings to mind a fact about human nature: there are so many catastrophes and incidents of evil and suffering that a great many of them occur out of our line of sight—even without a twenty-four hour a day news cycle that moves at the speed of the internet. And that same news cycle makes its money by overemphasizing terrible tragedies to drive audience size and advertising dollars. “If it bleeds, it leads,” goes the saying.

As we see civilians and maternity hospitals being targeted in the Russian invasion of Ukraine right now in March 2022, we certainly can admit that this question of why some would wonder why “God” allows such evil to be at the forefront of our minds. “There’s a problem here!” people of good conscience shout. “Why doesn’t God do something?”

In modern times, the Holocaust and other mass tragedies, the question still echoes—and becomes an accusation against God even by those who claim no belief in God. Too often tragedies befall the good, either through the evil agency of other humans or through natural disasters and accidents. Ukraine is an example of this and takes its place in a long, terrible roll call of the 20th century: The Tulsa Race Massacre in the midst of four centuries of lynchings, the Turkish slaughter of Armenians, Stalinism, the genocides of Pol Pot and Idi Amin, Romania, the AIDS epidemic, the breakup of Yugoslavia, Hurricane Katrina, the Boxing Day Tsunami, September 11….. on and on and on.

We ask that question because we don’t like the more honest question. God, out of love for us and respect for the gifts given us, deliberately chooses to limit God’s power to give us free will, and God made this planet with all its natural processes. When human free will causes terrible human evil, like in almost every example I cited earlier, the question isn’t “Why doesn’t God do something?” The question is “Why don’t WE do something?” Even natural disasters like earthquakes—and pandemics—may originate in nature, but can be made worse by human refusal to do what we can to alleviate suffering—look at climate change for an example of that. “Why don’t WE do something?” And we don’t like that question, at all. Never have, never will. So we blame God.

The ancient Jews, and I include Paul in our epistle reading in that, did not believe there WAS a problem. Instead, they believed that if something bad happened to you, you were being punished for some sin either you or your ancestors had committed. A bad thing that happened to you may not be “evil”—it may be retribution or divine justice. Throughout human history, many other people have adopted similar theodicies. Yet in Romans 3:23, Paul states flatly that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”

When faced with the question of theodicy, Jesus himself calls out that nonsense here. Those who were murdered by Rome and those who fell under the tower had not done anything to bring about their fates. One was the result of disordered human choices, and the other was either the result of shoddy engineering or just bad luck.

Jesus does not address this aspect of their question. He answers within the framework of the accepted belief of the day, but challenges it: those who died certainly did not deserve it, but all who refuse to repent WILL die still seeped in their sins. He thus neatly sidesteps the attempt to distract him from his central message of repentance. Death could come at any time—repent now!

The second half of this week’s reading is a parable about a fig tree that Jesus tells partly in response to the first five verses. It has been almost ten years since the tree was planted: three years to grow to maturity, then the first three crops were forbidden to be eaten, and now the owner of the vineyard has been disappointed three more years.

The first idea is to cut down, or dig out, the fig tree because it is “wasting the soil.” “Digging it out” represents judgment, as was discussed in the first half of our gospel. Jesus has the gardener propose another remedy: put fertilizer on it. Give the tree tender loving care.

THIS is where God indeed “does something” in the face of human suffering and trauma—we are often just too disoriented and spiritually worn down to notice it. I am convinced that in this parable, we ourselves ARE that fig tree. Especially as Christians in a post-Christian world, we are often at odds with the world just like a fig tree in a vineyard. On top of that, we have been through years of pandemic, which was a shock to our systems and our flourishing and our prayer life as much as a tree that has been scarred by fire or planted in the wrong place.

As we still deal with the disorientation and continuing suffering of this pandemic, many of us—myself included-- struggle with feeling spiritual barrenness. We have been isolated, our worlds upended. We have been bathing our brains and our hearts in nonstop anxiety, and some of us have seen loved ones sicken and die. 

We long for “normalcy” even if lots about our old lives, if we were completely honest, also sucked, because at least it was familiar. Sometimes, we cling to stuff that sucks because at least we know it sucks, rather than deal with stuff we don't know, because we fear it might suck.

So Jesus answers the question of responsibility for evil by talking about repentance. Repentance means to turn. To turn away from evil—even when evil is a matter of convenience. But also to turn away from those things which, although familiar, also do not serve us well.

How can we make the turn? Perhaps we can start with reorienting our perspective. Instead of seeing the things we lack and miss, where are there opportunities? Instead of seeing ways to lash out or disappear, where can WE re-engage and re-invest. Where can we choose to TURN our focus from our pain or barrenness to embracing ways to soothe it? Feel disconnected in your faith life? Reconnect!

Some of the most traumatic experiences in our lives can become sources of strength to ourselves afterward. This is not to say that that’s the point of the events, nor to fall into that terrible theological claim that “God never gives us more than we can handle”—making God out to be the cause of all our suffering so that we can, I suppose, make something meaningful out of the ordeal that we have been through and that we may be emerging from.

One of the graces we can give ourselves after emerging through a trauma is to mine that trauma for signs of our own strength and resilience, rather than blaming ourselves or allowing that experience to cripple and stunt our growth spiritually.

But—and this is important and must be emphasized—our gospel today reminds us that our own efforts only get us so far. The fig tree can’t fertilize itself. Jesus sees our trauma and the barrenness it produces—and reminds us that God is always with us, God’s hand underneath us, even, as our psalm beautifully insists. And Jesus urges us to take a breath, assess the box full of things we CAN control, and turn away from what inside that box further separates us from the love and fellowship of God and the love and fellowship of our communities of faith. 

Let me be blunt: if you are feeling the loss of God’s presence and fellowship, don’t further turn away from God and your faith community. Turn around—and open your heart to the possibility that God has been here all along, and when we are most barren and dry, God is ready and waiting to give us  nurture, protection, a sense of shalom or abundance, even peace and joy—and the easiest source is RIGHT HERE! Right here, in the form of our beloved faith fellowships, and our shared and vital practices of prayer, study of sacred texts, and exhortations known as “weekly worship.” Right here. Take a breath. Step up. Re-engage.

Here’s the good news. Jesus as the gardener understands our dryness—and is willing to see the potential deep within us. But we have to choose to spend our time cultivating our relationship with God, deliberately, as a gift from God but also a gift to ourselves.

We dream of renewal. We hope for nourishment. We can turn toward that renewal and nourishment when we turn toward God. That’s the tiny step WE can take, and decide that we are going to bloom and be fruitful despite where we are planted. We can decide to “give a fig” and embrace the vulnerability that embracing change—especially in our spiritual lives-- demands.

But also, there’s this incredible fact: Jesus intercedes for us, and offers us tender loving care. That’s the greatest good news that there can be.

No one is beyond investment—and that includes ourselves. Jesus calls us to lean into our trust and gratitude for all God does for us, even in – especially in—difficult times. The worst thing we can do is to continue in our ruts when we already feel that they do not serve us. Jesus (the gardener), who could agree with the unfaithful being cut down, instead urges patience—and better offers help to us. 

There is comfort here: Repent, turn toward God, who is merciful, filled with loving-kindness and infinite patience and forgiveness. Just like that fig tree not producing fruit, we fail in our purpose as human beings on this earth if we too do not produce good fruit, and we have heard what that fruit is: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. All things this world DESPERATELY needs from people of faith.

If we are aware that God is always with us—even when we have been in isolation and haze during COVID—there is an automatic remedy to our barrenness. God is our nourishment. Where we have felt barren, could we try taking a breath, engaging in gratitude for the blessings we have, and finding the joy in being in God’s presence (who is ever-present), and about what it is like to feel a physical wave of satisfaction in the presence of God. God sustains us. And then rejoice at the goodness of God—for there will be figs.

Amen.

Readings:

• Exodus 3:1-15
• 1 Corinthians 10:1-13
• Luke 13:1-9
• Psalm 63:1-8

Preached at the 505 Saturday and the 10:30 Sunday Eucharists at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, MO on March 19-20, 2022.

Prayer in the Wilderness: Rector’s Reflection for March 18 2022

Psalm 63:1-8

This coming Sunday’s Psalm portion we hear this coming weekend is a beautiful piece of devotional writing, one that one again focuses on the foundational characteristic of God (and one we are therefore called to emulate as children of God) being chesed, or loving-kindness, giving oneself fully, with love, mercy, and compassion.

The psalm offers a vivid admission of vulnerability but also the loving trustworthiness of God. The first 8 verses of this psalm work both as a thanksgiving and as a plea for intercession. You could summarize it as three emotional and spiritual responses: desire--“I want and need you” (v. 1-2); worship— “I praise you” (v. 3-5), and confidence— “I trust you to protect me (v. 6-8).” The most important descriptors used for our relationship with the Almighty are a hunger and thirst for God, one that God completely satisfies.

At the center of the verses we see, we move from the metaphor of thirst to hunger, and we suddenly are no longer in the sanctuary but in the humble home, concentrating upon God as we lie awake in bed and as we wander about the house in the middle of the night. Thus worship is not merely tied to a particular time or place (10:30 on a Sunday morning, for instance) but to the commonplace moments in our lives—every activity is an opportunity to praise God, an outlook in which Brother Lawrence was a famous exemplar. The faithful life is described as one of hungering and thirsting for God – and always finding satisfaction and abundance, even feasting on God’s provision and presence. For while we are hungering and thirsting for God, yet still we are held tenderly in the palm of God’s hand.

Sounds good, right? But if we know what we don’t see, Psalm 63 becomes even more of a comfort to us where we are right now. The superscription for this psalm claims that it was written by King David in the Judean wilderness. David was on the run—because his son Absalom had staged a coup and rather than strike down his son, he and his followers had fled, as described in 2 Kings 15. The three omitted verses ask God to powerfully protect the king from those who seek his life.

Most of us may not be dealing betrayal of the level of Absalom against his father. But we certainly should all be able to relate to the disorientation and prolonged anxiety of being in the wilderness, and of feeling a significant amount of vulnerability and lack of control as we deal with war, division, and pandemic.

How would it change our perspective as we continue to navigate this wilderness if we took seriously the reality that God is always with us, and that we can use every moment to praise and worship God, to dedicate each moment—even the pandemic ones—to God? When we wake up in the night, to practice breath prayer—such as the Jesus Prayer, which can remind us to lean into the feel of God’s hand beneath us. Especially for Lent, the Jesus Prayer works:

(inhale) Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God,

(exhale) Have mercy on me, a sinner.

Or, the beginning of the 23rd Psalm:

(inhale) God is my shepherd,

(exhale) Therefore I lack nothing.

Or this simple focus on the physical breath:

(inhale) I breathe in love.

(exhale) I breathe out peace.

As we continue through this season of Lent and beyond, I want to encourage you to lean into the knowledge that God is filled with lovingkindness and is always alongside us. And perhaps you could try using a breath prayer. And make time for worship and devotion, mindfully, each and every day.

Image: "Woman Lying Awake in Bed,"1635-1640 and "Young Woman Sleeping," Rembrandt, both from the British Museum.

Second Chances, Kicking and Screaming: Speaking to the Soul, March 17, 2022

Luke 13:1-9

One of my favorite cartoons has been around for years. You have probably seen a version of it. It’s an extension of the idea found in the inspirational poem, “Footprints.” In it, God is talking with a person with tear-stained cheeks, looking back on that person’s life as though their life’s journey consists of a series of impressions in the sand.

God points out, “My beloved child—I am always with you. See those two sets of footprints? That’s where you and I walked side-by-side.”

“Yes, God,” says the human, “but what about over there, where there’s only one set of footprints?”

God answers, “My child, there’s only one set of footprints there, because that’s where I carried you.”

In the cartoon, the person is relieved and brightens. Nice, right? But in the cartoon, the third panel, God continues, “And that deep pair of grooves over there? THAT’s where I dragged you, my child, kicking and screaming.”

Lent is that time of the year when we are invited to examine the “kicking and screaming” part of our lives, where we are reminded that sometimes we’ve fallen, and we can’t get up, so to speak. Yet, in the Christian Lenten understanding, we don’t depend on Life Alert but—thanks be to God—on God’s grace, on God never ever giving up on us.

The Parable of the Barren Fig Tree which we will hear this coming Sunday reminds us of the certainty of that abiding patience and protection that is an intrinsic part of God’s nature. While others might see our failures, pettiness, and flaws, God sees our potential.

And, O Lord, do we need that. Many of us are exhausted from two years of pandemic, and now a horrifying assault on a peaceful country on top of that. For some of us, that weariness has deepened into actual despair. We feel like giving up. We want “all this” to be over. God never gives up on us. When we are spiritually as crispy, prickly, and dessicated as a Joshua Tree, when we haven’t borne fruit for the last weeks or months or even years, nonetheless God is that patient gardener who sees the potential of our spirits for bearing fruit that could nourish a neighborhood. We may be prone to giving up on others and even ourselves, and be all too prone to “cutting our losses” and giving up, just like the owner of that fig tree.

But God not just insists on offering us the best soil and tender loving care in order to bring us back to a life of abundance. God insists that even if we haven’t been able to dredge up the ability to work on ourselves, God is willing to take the initiative. From the barest, driest branch a bud will form with the promise of new life. Even when we are certain we are alone, or worse, have been abandoned, God is right there alongside us. God is the God of second chances, even at times if we only go kicking and screaming.

This was first published at Episcopal Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on March 17, 2022.

Riding the Wave: Speaking to the Soul, March 10, 2022

In the daily office readings for this morning, we hear a reminder in Psalm 50 of the incredible power of God:

The mighty one, God the Lord,
   speaks and summons the earth
   from the rising of the sun to its setting.

Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty,
    God shines forth.

Our God comes and does not keep silence,
    before God is a devouring fire,
    and a mighty tempest all around God.

The extolling of beauty’s perfection, and the reminder of our rightful awe at the power of God and God’s creation, calls to mind a particular work of art that is familiar to many.

In 1830, the Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai published a series of engravings called Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, widely considered to be his masterpiece. Outside Japan, the most famous image from that series is the woodblock engraving entitled The Great Wave Off Kanagawa.

The wave dominates the scene: it rises menacingly above three small boats and the souls therein, open like a panther’s paw to grasp at whatever comes into its path. It seems to move and even breathe with an energy all its own. It even dwarfs Mount Fuji, considered to be the epitome of beauty. The viewer is drawn into the scene by the artist’s decision to place the horizon below the crest of the wave, as if looking on from a boat of one’s own on the sea’s stormy surface. In fact, the wave is placed in such a way that it looks as if it has Mount Fuji in its grasp. At the time that Hokusai created this image, Japan was on the verge of emerging from centuries of isolationism, yet the artist himself was influenced by paintings of northern Europe, and his choice of Prussian blue, a color which was relatively new in painters’ palettes, as the dominant hue, offered the promise of change and a new path for Japan.

As in this morning’s psalm, humility before the power of creation is an idea that is profoundly expressed by Hokusai’s vision—and it is one that we particularly struggle with, believing as many of us do that creation has been placed into our hands to be disposed of as we wish. Yet the human power to destroy is nothing next to the power of creation. As we deal with rising sea levels and period of prolonged drought brought on by our failure to honor the fragile web of creation that both supports us and holds us dependent, we too can imagine a wave looming menacingly before us.

To me this painting is one that evokes the call to repentance that is at the heart of Lent, if we wish to avail ourselves the renewal that then can be ours. As we remember two years of pandemic, and now more than a week after the brutal attacks on civilians in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we know that the waters beneath are troubled. But we can turn again. That’s the core of the treasures that Lent offers us. The steadfastness of God’s love for us calls us to turn, knowing that our hope rests in the embrace of the Almighty.

Too often we blithely row out into deep waters, forgetting that we have the ability to turn back when our path leads us toward potential disaster.

Lord, help us to remember how you uphold our lives by grace, and give us the wisdom to turn toward You again, that we may serve You and those around us in love and gratitude.

This was first published at Episcopal Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on March 10, 2022.

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