We make our beds...

This was the morning sermon preached on July 8, 2007 (Proper 9, Year C)

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We make our beds and then we lie in them. And yet, there is grace.

You have watched us reap all that we have sown;
We went through fire and through water,
Yet You have brought us through our pain and
Into your dwelling place.

That’s what the Psalm teaches us. The Psalmist – whoever he was, King David didn’t write this particular piece of music – is remembering what God has already done for the people to whom he sings. But this wasn’t just a one time thing – the Psalmist is succinctly describing a cycle of the Universe, and using metaphor to do it.

Now, the Psalmist may have been writing about any number of national or cultural difficulties – he may have been talking about the escape of the Israelites from Egypt, he may have been talking about the national upheaval in the not entirely smooth transfer of power from King Saul, the first king of Israel to King David, the second and most beloved king of Israel, against whom all other rulers were ever compared, and found wanting. The Psalmist may have even fast-forwarded through history here, and have been talking about the period of exile – when everyone who was anyone in Israel was forcibly displaced and made to be refugees in Babylonia – they didn’t take the poor people, mind you, just all of the politicians, priests, craftsmen, merchants, and anyone else who might have been necessary to the maintaining of a society, plus all the physical wealth. The Psalmist might have been singing about that time.

Regardless of what exact memory the Psalmist was trying to evoke for the people to whom he sung with his metaphor, there’s a point that is very clear here for us, and would have been terrifically clear to the people of Israel. This idea that we’ve reaped what we’ve sown. We’ve made our bed, and now we’re lying in it.

It’s an idea that, regardless of what cause to which we might attribute those historical events, the people themselves clearly understood the situation as one that they walked into with their eyes wide open.

Surely, we can identify with this.

Now, I don’t need a show of hands for this one, but who here has done something you regret? Or, perhaps, neglected to do something? Think on that for a moment. It could be large, it could be small, it could be something that happened yesterday, or earlier this morning, or twenty years ago. If there are several things to choose from, just for the moment pick one of those.

Now that you have that one thing in your head, think about the fallout from that incident. This may or may not be something you’ve ever done before, but indulge me and try it out. What happened in your environment around you because you did or didn’t do what you remembered? How did other people react? Think of it like a cause and effect chain of events. Where there effects you didn’t realize at the time, but only came to understand later, or even, now?

Now, for some of us, this moment that we regret may have had a happy ending, so to speak. It turned out okay anyway, or no one was hurt, or we went through the pain and were forgiven – and then forgave ourselves. For some of us, this moment of regret may not have had a happy ending. It was just one instance in a long line of similar ones, and still nothing has changed, or people were hurt because of that moment we regret, and there has never been forgiveness – either we have never forgiven ourselves, we have never accepted the forgiveness of others, or we have never actually received forgiveness from them.

It’s no light matter, these little regrets of ours. These little regrets, that sometimes, are not so very little after all.

And in addition to personal regrets, individual regrets, we may have regrets as a family, or as a group of friends, because moments in which we regret our words and actions aren’t just limited to how we act as an individual. When we’re in a larger group, our power to do and to be grows exponentially. Look, for instance, at how cruel teenagers can be to one another, in groups, whereas one-on-one their behavior is usually quite different. If you don’t know what I’m talking about here, just go rent a movie – Hollywood has an entire sub-genre devoted to the nastiness and meanness of adolescents, in groups, and they’re not just making it up.

But lest we start to unduly vilify teens, let’s think of even larger groups – bigger than family and friends. Let’s think of… government. Let’s think of Buffalo as a region – full of lawmakers and law enforcers, full of non-profits and for-profits, full of public schools and private schools, colleges and universities, full of citizens of every stripe and age, as well as foreign nationals and ex-patriots from many lands.

Think of this, even as I read out again that portion from the psalm.

You have watched us reap all that we have sown;
We went through fire and through water,
Yet You have brought us through our pain and
Into your dwelling place.

Please note that this reflection of reality that we find in the Psalm doesn’t end on a note of pain, or suffering, or regret. Let me repeat that. The Psalm – not this portion, not the work in its entirety – doesn’t end with regret. And neither should we. Because regret isn’t the last word – perhaps in a world where there is no God, no compassionate Beloved who created us and cares for us and inspires us, perhaps regret would be the end – but we don’t live in such a world.

We live in a world where there is grace.

Now, grace is kind of an old fashioned word, as well as a woman’s first name, but in this usage, the “Grace of God” means that whether or not we think we deserve it, we are capable of receiving love, forgiveness and blessing, even in our worst moment, even in our darkest hour.

Grace is what the psalmist was talking about several thousand years ago when this piece was originally sung out to groups of people.

Grace is what we have all experienced at one point or another or maybe over and over again whenever someone forgave us, even though we’d hurt them, whenever someone loved us anyway. And we have been the living out of Grace ourselves – every time we forgive, or love – the light of the Beloved, the light of God shines out of us in those moments.

But more than just specific incidences, Grace is that underlying presence of God – Grace means the presence of blessing in our life, as well as the invitation of blessing. All good things.

Imagine that – all good things. This is Grace.

And so, we have those moments we regret; we have the cause and the effect that can be so painful and so detrimental – whether we consider it just on our own personal level, or on our regional, or national level – and then, we have Grace, which is not a “Get Out Of Jail Free” card, but rather is the ability to heal the breach, no matter what the cause, no matter what the effect.

Think about that with me for a minute. God’s Grace helps us, allows us, enables us, inspires us, to heal the breach. The breach within ourselves, the breach between us and the ones we love, the breach in the communities in which we live, the nation in which we live, the world in which we live.

You have watched us reap all that we have sown;
We went through fire and through water,
Yet You have brought us through our pain and
Into your dwelling place.

That is cause for hope.

Expectations, or Happiness...

This little something-something was given on Sunday evening, July 1, 2007.

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I was thinking about expectations.

I have always thought that that there were two sorts of expectations.

There was the sort of expectations that you knew where unrealistic
Pies up there, in the sky.
Hopes and dreams for the far future.
Wishful thinking for a situation to be somehow,
Magically,
Different than it is.

And then there were everyday expectations.
I expect to get up and have a cup of coffee before work.
I expect to go to work.
I expect to see a friend,
To do this or that around the house.
I expect for my dog to adore me,
For my child to greet me with joy,
For my spouse to be patient
For… well, you name it.

But when you start thinking about those categories…
Is it any more likely to expect your five year old daughter
To become a Nobel Laureate
Than to expect that your spouse will always be patient?

I was thinking about expectations.
I don’t know about you,
But when I can finally acknowledge that I have them,
They’re not terribly vague,
Neither are they terribly weak.
They’re specific, and strong and…
Powerful.

It turns out that I’ve been gambling
My present happiness for some future outcome.
Instead of simply existing right now
Right now
Doing whatever I’m doing
Being however I am
My poor unfocused brain
Is computing at a hundred miles an hour
Placing bets on the future
And then, God forbid, worrying about them

I haven’t finished the project yet
Will I finish it in time?
I haven’t called my mother today…
And so it goes, on and on.

But that’s not all.

I’ve been thinking about expectations.

Isn’t it funny how we blame our happiness,
Or lack thereof
On everything – absolutely everything –
Than the one thing that can decide
Whether or not we are happy,
Which is, of course, our own selves.

The butterfly may flap its wings tonight
In some jungle in South America
And two years later, next Tuesday
You’ll get married here in the City
And it will rain terribly
But not in the suburbs
And it will be terribly disappointing
But in twelve year, next Tuesday,
You’ll be able to trace it all back
All of your pain
All of your heartache
All of the marital trouble
All of the problem with the kids
You’ll be able to trace it all
Back to that terrible afternoon
Two years ago, next Tuesday
When it rained on your wedding day.

Isn’t it funny – in that dark, not actually humorous way –
How we are so adept at blaming everyone but ourselves?

Of course there is an alternative.
We could cut down on the expectations
With the ideal being that we cut them out
Entirely
And meanwhile
Take responsibility for our own happiness
Or lack thereof.

Of course, that’s rather challenging.
It’s one of those things that is simple,
But not easy.
But the flip side is…

You’ll be happy.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martyr

Sermon given at Trinity Church, July 1, 2007, Proper 8

We have here some very somber readings. We have a reading from the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. – martyr. We have a reading from the Rev. Dr. Dietrich Bonhoeffer – martyr. We have a reading from Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah – martyr. The story about Jesus as it is told, has him on the road to Jerusalem – that final trip to Jerusalem, where in the words of the gospeller Luke, Jesus is about to be ‘taken up’, which can be read: gruesomely executed by the Roman Empire. Bonhoeffer is in a prison in Nazi Germany – he’s going to be hanged. And King has yet to make his final speech on April 4th in Memphis, where he will be shot and killed.

Everyone knows who the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. is, though not everyone has really gotten the chance to think about the fact that he did and said quite a lot more than just those four little words – “I have a dream.”

Most of us are acquainted with Jesus, so I’ll save him for the end.

Not everyone knows who the Reverend Doctor Dietrich Bonhoeffer was, so please allow me to give you a brief history lesson. The time is 1931, the scene is Nazi Germany just before the outbreak of World War II. At 25 years of age, Bonhoeffer was a priest and professor, and having traveled widely, returned to Germany. With other theologians of note, Bonhoeffer founded a new Church, and eventually a seminary to train preachers, and though small, this was one of the few Churches – and by Church, I mean, capital “c” a national organization of parishes that have something in common, and not an individual congregation alone. This was one of the few Churches that provided strong and consistent resistance to the actions of the Nazis against the Jews during the war. Indeed, Bonhoeffer always objected – loudly and annoyingly, with a similar eloquence as Dr. King – to the stances and actions of the Nazi party. The Gestapo closed his seminary, so it had to go underground. The Gestapo banned him from preaching. Then teaching. Then any kind of public speaking at all. Eventually he was arrested when it was discovered that he was aiding Jews to escape to Switzerland. But that’s not even the big part.

The big part was that Bonhoeffer was nonviolent. He preached with stirring eloquence the same nonviolence that Dr. King would later preach. Dietrich Bonhoeffer believed in nonviolence with every fiber of his being… But Bonhoeffer was also faced with the reality of …Hitler. Hitler, needlessly killing millions upon millions of innocent people, all based on mindless and stupid assumptions about race, class, culture, religion, and sexuality. I imagine it’s hard to remain a proponent of nonviolence when faced with such inhumane madness.

Bonhoeffer was in a Nazi prison for a whole year before it was found out that he was in a plot to assassinate Hitler – a plot that didn’t succeed, of course – but a plot that included Bonhoeffer, a significant portion of his own family, and a number of high ranking Nazi military officers. When this was found out, he was transferred to a death camp at Flossenburg, and was hanged in 1945, three weeks before Flossenburg was liberated by Allied forces.

Like Dr. King, our church understands Bonhoeffer to be not only a theologian and preacher of note, but a martyr as well. And that is a little bit of history about Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Now, Dr. King, in the reading we just heard speaks quite eloquently about nonviolence, and I would hazard to say that his words can stand alone. Though, I will say that his reflections about the strength and power it takes to be nonviolent stand as a very striking counterpoint to the actions of the disciples in the gospel story we just heard. Jesus and his followers are snubbed by the Samaritans, because Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem – obviously to pray at the temple, what other business could a wandering rabbi have in the city – and the very thought of praying in the temple was abhorrent to any self-respecting Samaritan. So they snubbed him, refused to offer him hospitality, refused to hear him at all, and sent his followers packing. And his followers – and we can’t even think of several anonymous faces this time, we’re specifically told that it was James and John – two of Jesus’ closest friends, the ones who after he was gone would be at the helm of this new movement we now call Christianity, who along with Peter, where making the sorts of decisions that usually are prefaced with the words, “Jesus would have wanted it this way,” we have James and John absolutely chomping at the bit to rain down a little hellfire and brimstone on the hapless village of Samaritans. Literally. They wanted to curse the village and literally call down vengeance upon in that would manifest in widespread physical destruction.

Jesus’ response is illuminating: he rebuked them. I imagine it went something like this: “Are you insane? NO!”

Ah, nonviolence. Given what we know of Jesus, it’s actually not too hard to understand his reaction. In fact, this is one of those moments where, if we see it coming down the pike, we can sit back in our chairs and smile ruefully, shaking our heads at those silly disciples who have got it wrong again, like some comic foil who is always tripping over his own shoes. We can sit back, smug, yes, but if we do so we are then pulled up short, because the next part of the story make significantly less sense to us, and our modern minds.

It makes less sense to me, too, though I suspect, like all good confusing bits of wisdom, there are actually several layers of meaning, each one helpful in its own way, each one speaking to a truth of the universe, each one completely different from the next.

And so we see three encounters in rapid succession – Jesus and potential disciples. Two of them announce their intention to join him, and in a rather roundabout fashion, he tells them no. One of them is invited by Jesus to join him, but when it turns out that he can’t leave right away it doesn’t go well for him.

So on the one hand we have Nonviolent Jesus. And on the other hand we have Rude Jesus.

It’s moments like this when I wonder if Jesus had an inkling that the trip to Jerusalem wasn’t going to be all milk and honey. I don’t think he planned to get so angry in the temple market place as to start a riot. I don’t think he planned to have only three years of teaching before he was arrested, tried, and executed, but it’s moments like this, when he was slightly less than patient, slightly less than all things good and kind that make me remember that he was human. He was only human. He was just human. He was human. And it makes me wonder if he had an inkling about what he was getting himself into.

It’s moments like this when I wonder if Dietrich Bonhoeffer thought that he might not live to see 40, as he helped get Jews to Switzerland, and preached sermons that made the Gestapo see red.

But of course, we know Bonhoeffer was only human, and we have this wonderful excerpt from one of his letters from prison, where he’s contemplating just that. Who he is, versus how he seems. He seems to other people, even in prison, all things cool and confidant, calm and wise. They say he walks out of his cell, when he’s allowed to walk out of his cell, like a country squire, or if you will, like a suburban CEO, subtly surrounded by an easy confidence. And yet on the inside he’s ripping apart, trembling, weary, empty, and faint.

I wonder if Jesus ever felt like that.

Bonhoeffer wonders who he is – the person he feels to be on the inside, or the person he seems to be on the outside. Or maybe both? Or neither? A hypocrite, or a weakling?

I wonder if Jesus ever felt like that.

But then, just at the end, he does the most amazing thing, Bonhoeffer does. He admits that he has no idea who he is, which really is something that he was making abundantly clear before, but it’s nice for him to admit to it, and he flips his all of his musings on its head. He changes the rules and suddenly he remembers the bigger picture. He stops trying to define himself in terms of a small fleeting action, and starts defining himself in terms of a larger state of being. He starts defining himself in terms of God.

I would wonder if Jesus ever felt like that, but I don’t have to, because we’re told that he did. Jesus did – he did define himself in terms of his relationship with God, and he did it all the time.

Maybe the bigger question, is, do we?

The opening prayer for worship on Sunday. I deeply suspect this was written by my rector, The Rev. R. Cameron Miller. I'll keep you posted on that suspicion.

Beloved,
God of billions,
who live in the igcognito of anonymity
who have been
healed
cleansed
spiritually roto-rooted
by your power that is so much greater than ourselves:
have mercy on us.

We are legion,
each one of us -
a legion of dawning splendor,
mean discontent
and unfulfilled hunger all in one person;
a trinity of saints and demons
three-in-one:
have mercy on us.

Nothing can heal our manic desire
for more and more;
nor quiet the legion of voices
splitting our heart into minions;
nothing, that is, but you,
only you.
have mercy on us.

And you do
have mercy on us
as we follow your boat drifting away
and beckon for you to take us with you.
But, instead, you surprise us,
telling us to stay home
and do some healing here.
Beloved, we give you thanks for your mercy and healing. Amen.

Video Killed the Radio Star

Alrighty then. So, there's this DVD that my parish had made. It's a little old school, but it gets the point across. Do, check it out.

Sacred Space

This is a short guided meditation that I wrote for my confirmation class to illustrate in a really experiential way, that we all have sacred space.

I thought I'd share...

There’s something that’s a little hard to describe, but there’s something about a place. It might be a memory that comes up, or a feeling – a feeling of being safe, or unsafe – think about it. We all have spaces that are sacred to us. We can feel it when someone else is there with us because we’re just so aware of the space. For instance, your bedroom at home.

Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and imagine your bedroom at home. Imagine yourself lying on your bed, playing a game, reading a book, or talking on the phone. You’re lying on your bed. Picture it. Feel it. What does it feel like? What does it smell like? Know all the little details, feel them – how light or dark is it? Is the door open or closed? Is the window open or shut – is the shade drawn? What does it feel like? Think of three words that describe to you what it feels like.

Now, imagine that someone just walked in, uninvited and unannounced, into your bedroom and they’re standing just inside the doorway. And it’s not just anyone – it’s the one person on this earth that you truly do not like.

How do you feel now? Is it different from how you felt before your sacred space was invaded? Now imagine that person accepting that they are not welcome and graciously leaving your space – whether or not they’d do that in person, imagine it happening. How does it feel now? Is there still some anger or annoyance, or bitterness left over? It would make sense if there were. If that’s true for you, imagine yourself putting down the book, or the game, or telling the person on the other end of the phone that you’ll call them back in a few.

Imagine yourself getting up, standing in the middle of the room so you can see the door, and lighting a candle. If you’re not allowed to have candles in your bedroom, don’t worry – you have permission just this once. Light the candle and hold it in your hands. Watch the flame. Imagine the light of the flame driving out the darkness of the feelings that were left over by your unwelcome visitor. Imagine that all of the negativity is getting burned up, consumed along with the wax of the candle. Imagine that the barely discernable smoke that comes from the flame is the prayer, rising to God, that this space be clean again – not the sort of clean that comes from vacuuming or dusting, but the sort of clean that describes a place you know you’re safe in. Take a deep breath as you look at your candle. Your space is your own, again, so now you can blow out the candle and put it aside.

Go back to your bed and sit on the edge. Just sit there. Sit there without picking up anything to do, sit there and revel in the fact that your space is okay again. Sit, and breathe, and be in your space. Sit and breathe and be in your space, your safe, comfortable, warm space. Sit and be in your space for a few moments more, even while I don’t say anything at all. When I sound the bowl again, open your eyes and come back to this space, but for now, just sit on the edge of your bed and be in your own sacred space.

…As you can see, there are sacred spaces everywhere, and we all have them. And there are some sacred spaces that groups of people hold in common – this church is one of those. We do a lot to keep it sacred, but the biggest thing, the most effective thing that makes is sacred is that God is encountered a lot here – God is encountered in the music, in the prayers, in the people, in the sermon, in the communion, in the symbols, you name it...

Directions

Trinity @ 7 Sermon for June 17, 2007


Take a plane to New York City. From Grand Central Station take the train to Buffalo. Get a taxi into the city, right into Niagara Square. Walk down Delaware Avenue, away from the river and pause at Chippewa to get some coffee and some atmosphere. As the scent of the coffee hits you, know that even just for now, just for this moment, there is beauty in the world, and you are sitting at the center of the mandala. When you’re done with your croissant and paper, continue to stroll down the Avenue, past the construction and the repurposed church, and down half a block there is a church, called Trinity. And on a Sunday night you can come in, hear the jazz, the spoken word, and perhaps at some point you’ll look up and see God. It could happen. God’s always there, after all, waiting like a puppy at the periphery, waiting for our attention, which typically we don’t offer until we let our guard down right before we fall asleep, or when we’re eating cheesecake or chocolate ice cream from a cone, when we see a newborn anything or our oldest and best friend, or when we come to this place… This place.

This place.

Have you ever noticed how physical things get a hard rap when they come up against abstract stuff like grace, and love, and grief and suffering – when we talk about the spiritual life. And maybe that’s Plato’s fault, because really, ever since Plato and Aristotle, who are some of the heavy hitters when it comes down to the forefathers of Modern Western Thought, ever since them, it’s been a really popular notion to think of the universe as spirit versus body in a contest where body can’t win, shouldn’t win, and is a dirty rotten scoundrel for even supposing it had a chance. Now, there are a lot of implications for this, because their teachings were naturally pretty deep, fairly complex, and were, at least for their time, really convincing arguments as to how the Universe worked. I mean, some of the strange and messed up ways we look at sex, gender, and hierarchy can be traced back, at least in part, to these guys.

But, you know, it’s like Mary Oliver says – when we let our soft bodies love what they love our lives instantly lose a layer of complexity and insanity.

There’s a question that many of us are still asking ourselves even now – not just ‘who am I?’ but ‘what do I love? And how can I do it?’ Because doing what we love is one of the many roads to being what we love, which at the end of all things, is love itself.

And so the physical and the spiritual meet, just when we least suspect it.

And so it really is, with life, I think.

Bodies – they’re the things we carrying around with us until the one day we leave without a forwarding address, but they’re not just dead weight. They’re the vehicle on the road to happiness – they’re our train car to Nirvana, Enlightenment, and the Kingdom of God. They’re the way we know, the way we can experience God.

And one great way to experience God – for there are so many, if you hadn’t noticed already, so very many – One great way to experience God is to do what you love.

What do you love?