Everyone has heard Amazing Grace. Except very few of you really have. Have you sat on rain dampened bleachers with the sun setting behind your back and low dark clouds rolling in at your face? Have you looked down at nearly two hundred pipers, and another hundred drummers standing utterly still below you as the wind lifts and ripples a rainbow of tartan.
Hundreds of people sit huddled around you, all silent, all waiting. The wind comes up behind, running shivering fingers up your spine as the first notes rise over the field. A lone piper breaks the hush. Close your eyes let the gentle prayer of those notes settle into your ears. And wait. There, at the end of the first verse it begins. Low in your bones a rumble like thunder on the horizon. The drums, bass and tenor, deep as the foundations of the earth. And then it hits you, a wall of sound. Two hundred pipes crying in unison. You do not hear the music now, you feel it. You taste it. You breath it. It fills your lungs, your ears, your chest. It drowns out thought. There is only the music. Only the unison prayer of a thousand souls.
You cannot describe that moment, you cannot record it. Listen and know you hear only a shadow...
Response to May 27th sermon.
For the lessons today go here: Day of Pentecost, RCL. Since they all apply I'm not going to insert them all here and create a post a mile long. I don't need help doing that, I do it all by myself.
I am usually gone for Pentecost. It falls most years on Memorial Day weekend. A weekend I usually spend in Alma Michigan at the annual highland festival getting my yearly dose of all things Scottish. This year was odd. Not least because the previous year I'd been in Scotland and I am horribly homesick (for Scotland that is). For various reasons I wasn't willing to miss Pentecost this year. So we drove home Saturday night through the rain.
S reminded us of a story she'd told before (at least I'd heard it) about her first time in a pulpit. How her priest had called her up and sprung the request on her out of the blue. I couldn't help remembering that she had done the exact same thing to me last year on Pentecost and I'd had much the same reaction that she related now. In short, I ran about in a panic until the last minute when I finally sat down and listened. God solved both our problems for us once we were willing to listen.
One of the priests where I attended church during college once asked us to consider which part of the Trinity we felt most connected to or comfortable with. For most people it was Jesus. For me it was the Father. For this priest it was the Spirit. I remember wondering how the heck the Spirit could be his choice.
But in the past few months I think my answer has changed. It is the Spirit of change, the Spirit of courage, the Spirit of justice, the Spirit of truth who I have felt move through my life. It is the Spirit, that with my spirit has given me words and abilities I never expected. It is the Spirit who has moved me, sometimes literally. It is the Spirit who has sometimes hounded and herded. It is the Spirit who has spoken in my ear.
Before it was only the Father I looked to. God was a big loving presence to call on when I was scared or lonely or unhappy. God bandaged my knee and dried my tears and sent me on my way (perhaps I should have said God the Mother). I still need that part of God, I still need to feel safe and loved and supported. I still need to turn to my heavenly parent in fear or confusion. But I am ready to see that God is more than the comforter of my childhood. I am ready for God to use me, drive me, urge me.
Come, Holy Spirit
fill me with fire.
Come, Holy Spirit
ignite me with purpose.
Come, Holy Spirit, come!
Response to May 20th sermon.
John 17:20-26
Jesus prayed for his disciples, and then he said. "I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.
"Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me. I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them."
Where can I even begin? I listened to the gospel today beneath the heavy weight of the cross in my hands. It is light as goose down compared to the load others carry. In the midst of hurt and pain and division comes this prayer. Prayed for a group of men thousands of years ago. Prayed also for those of us who today stood beneath the carved wooden trusses of a gothic roof.
We need such a prayer. S spoke of Love today, that awesome four letter word. And she spoke of hate. Two words, simple sounds both. But opposites of one another. Love is creative, it builds and gathers and unites. Hate is destructive, divisive, it scatters and shatters and breaks down.
Hate divides, it separates us from one another and from the God who is Love.
S commented to me as we were lining up to process that her sermon would be a little different at the second service today. I'm sorry I missed the first one, but I certainly felt the thrust of the late service sermon. And the cut of it.
The dream of God is for a united family. That we might all be one, and that as one we might love God, and one another, as fully as he loves us. But we reject the dream; we turn our backs on that awesome promise. Instead of unity we sow discord. Instead of love we meet one another with anger, fear, even hate. It takes courage to stand before a people at war with themselves and plead for love. It takes courage to give divine food and drink to enemy and friend alike.
I was ashamed today, of humanity, of my congregation, and myself. I was ashamed of our hubris. Ashamed of what we do to one another in our mad desire for our own way; our own piece of power and position; our own comfort; to prove that we are right and another wrong. We sow destruction. We wound one another, and we turn away from God's desire for us.
There is little else to say. We are called to unity. We are called to love. We have failed, always. And yet, perhaps, we struggle on. My prayers this week will be for comfort and for strength for all those harmed by our human divisions. For those I love, those I find hard to love, and those I have yet to meet.
Christ pray for us now.
Where there is anger, bring peace.
Where there is hatred, sow love.
Where there is hurt, bring healing.
Where we are broken, unite us.
Where we are lost, lead us.
Forgive us, Lord God. Amen.
Response to May 13th Sermon - (Reading from John 5:1-9)
It was one of those Sundays; when the sermon is aimed straight at you and you know it, even if the preacher doesn't. Well, she probably does, you just hope that's not the case. I sat around a lunch table after church and breathed a little sigh of relief that I was not alone in feeling this bit of teaching pierce like a poniard.
We've all heard this story before, and many other healing stories like it. The gospels are full of them. If you're like me you find them repetitive. Maybe you are just a bit wary as well. After all, what good is the healing of a leper thousands of years ago to us today? What good healing one, twenty, even a hundred when those we love grow sick, or weak, or old?
S did what she often does; she turned the old story on its head. It stopped being just one more healing story. Christ spoke out of the pages of the gospel and straight at each of us. Go on, go read the passage, this won't make much sense otherwise.
(I'll wait...)
Back? So, the sermon? What is important here isn't what happened. It isn't that Jesus healed this man. It was what he said to him first. "Do you want to be made well?" The man doesn't say "Yes, Lord!" He doesn't beg for healing. In fact he makes no positive response at all. He only complains, and shifts the blame for his lack of healing to others. And Jesus? He doesn't tolerate it, he doesn't coddle or comfort him. He tells him to stand up and walk! I could hear the exasperation in his words.
That man sat for 38 years and blamed his problems on everyone but himself. I suspect he was afraid to be well. That would have meant having to go get a job, raise a family, care for a home, and take part in his community. Being well means hard work. Its easier to complain. Its easier to blame everything that goes wrong in our lives on someone else.
I have gone to the same church for 30 years. As I sat in church on Sunday and listened to S speak I knew she was right. She sees us, me, more clearly than anyone has before. She sees where we sit, beside the pool that could make us whole and well. She hears the excuses we make. She hears us blame everyone but ourselves for our problems. We are afraid to step down into the water or ask for help. Mostly, we have been afraid to be well.
If we were well we would have to change. We would have to grow and move forward. We would leave behind things and people we knew. We would do hard work. We would risk. The safe thing, the comfortable thing is to lay on our mat beside the pool. The safe thing is to blame others for why we fail to get better. (And I won't say anymore. This is a public forum but I think anyone familiar with the Church will understand.)
It is not the gentle, meek coddling Jesus we need in this place. Jesus who will pat us on the head and hold our hands and listen to a long list of 'poor me.' We do not need someone to love us where we are. We need the Jesus of the gospel; who ignores our whining and our excuses and commands us: "Get up! Walk!"
I was sitting beside that pool. I have blamed "them." I have blamed our past. Always it was someone else. I even analyzed and evaluated. But I stayed stubbornly beside the pool. Until now. I do want to be well, no matter what that means. Those first few tentative steps have been hard. But I am standing. I am walking. I am speaking. I have been given a command and I will listen this time.
I am standing, Lord.
Show me where You would have me go,
only let me not go alone.
I am speaking, Lord.
Teach me the words to say,
only let them be Your words.
I am working, Lord.
Direct my hands to Your labor,
only never let them go.
Response to April 22nd Sermon - (Reading from John 21:1-14)
How often do I look and not see? How many times have I shook a hand, or hugged someone close and not really seen them? How often have I avoided Christ in the eyes of others? During the sermon S asked us to look into each other's eyes at the Peace. She encouraged us to see Christ in each other.
I imagine many of my fellow parishioners felt just a little silly as they passed the peace. Maybe they avoided the eyes of the person whose hand they shook or shoulders they squeezed in a hug. We're Anglicans! We're Midwesterners! What was our priest thinking? We don't stare deeply into each others eyes. We give a little nod and look sideways shyly and comment on the weather.
I think she was trying to remind us that we are also children of God. A God who calls us to see one another, and the world around us in a new way. We are called to look, with a penetrating gaze that sees through the surface and to the truth beneath it. Humor me. Grab a loved one; your son, your daughter, your wife or husband. Now really look. Not the way the world looks. Not at the mascara on her lashes or at the glasses he wears. Look into her eyes and see a human being. See a fellow child of God. Up for a bigger challenge? Do that with someone you have argued with. Someone who you have hurt, or who has hurt you.
If you are really looking you can see Him there. Our resurrected Lord within those we love, and those we find hard to love. And he calls us to care for them. To tend them, feed them, love them. And when we do that we love Him. We cannot do one without the other. We do not truly love Jesus if we cannot love those around us. (All of them!) And we cannot fail to love Him as we love and care for them.
So, I did it. I stepped outside of my Midwestern comfort zone and I looked. Some people were easy to see. There was my surrogate Grandmother; a mentor; a friend; and people I have known (at least on Sunday) all my life. But there was also someone with whom I had argued just a few days before. Someone who had said things that hurt my sense of justice and fair play. It would have been easier not to look. It would have been easier to smile and wear a safe, polite mask. Instead we looked. I could not tell you now what color their eyes are. It doesn't matter. But I saw a fellow child of God. I saw someone who believed. Someone I was called to love. And I knew I had perhaps perplexed and upset them as much as they had me.
If we are truly looking we will see more in those eyes. We will see ourselves reflected back. What do we see in our reflection? Do we look out on the world with Christ's eyes? Is that what others seen in us? Or do they reflect back only our fallen nature? Our quarrels and arguments; our cheap barbs. Do they see the remnants of the joke we just cracked with our friends at their expense? Do they see our judgment or contempt? Do they see our pity, our impatience, or our dishonesty? Perhaps they see only our disinterest. Do we dare hope they see the love of Christ for them?
Perhaps that's why we are so reluctant to see. Perhaps we are not half so afraid of seeing Christ in the person we greet as we fear what our own reflection will show us about ourselves.
Can the hills keep silent?
Can the sea fail to shout?
Can the stars not roar with praise?
For my lips are stubborn,
And my heart is sluggish.
For my mind does not wish to see,
and my eyes are dim.
The day is loud in my ears,
the light is blinding.
But You listen for me,
above the chorus of creation.
The night is heavy with silence,
the dark is terrifying.
But You wait for me,
beside the empty road.
Open my lips, Father.
Kindle my heart, Spirit.
Awaken my mind, Lord.
Light my eyes with your Love.
We have ourselves a very good preacher though I'm not entirely sure she knows it. The more "off the cuff" she goes, the more she speaks from the heart and the Spirit and trusts herself to do so, the more I can't get enough.
The Epistle this week was from Revelations 7:9-17. Now lets get one thing straight. I have some reservations about Revelation. No, I don't believe its literal. No, I don't believe it's a code for the "end times." And when an early service member dropped the spoiler that the sermon was on the Revelation reading I was thoroughly ready to hate the sermon as well. I'd thought I'd heard it all. From those who claim Revelation as an "end time prophecy" to those who say its just a coded letter to persecuted churches telling them to, in essence, "buck up." Neither of those options, or the ones between, make me think this thing belongs in the Bible or is anything more than useless for us today.
I was wrong, pleasantly wrong. We heard today another view of Revelation. Worship. Listen:
Revelation 7: 9-12Revelation as the highest form of worship. Not worship that starts at 10:30 on Sunday and is done by 11:30 (well, maybe 11:40 if we go a bit overboard at the Peace). But worship that has been going on since time itself began. Worship that never ends. Our voices merely join for the briefest period of time. Then bits of the sermon began to connect with other bits...After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying,
"Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!"
And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, singing,
- "Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom
- and thanksgiving and honor
- and power and might
- be to our God forever and ever! Amen."
We have been studying a book in Christian Ed. that calls God a Lover. And we, his Beloved. It is our voices, small, insignificant, off key and unsure, that God listens for. It is our voices, in worship for a heartbeat of the span of the universe, that God delights in.
Perhaps, I thought, Revelation isn't all bad. We first spoke, and then sang the words of Canticle 18 "A Song to the Lamb" (Book of Common Prayer page 93):
Now I was smiling. This was something I had grown up with, a canticle I could have perhaps once recited from heart. And I could, indeed, see the parallel with the Revelation text. When the sermon was over we said the words that have followed a sermon all my life; the Nicene Creed. A simple litany of faith repeated so often it has become rote. So often I often do not even hear it as I speak it. And a litany that has often seemed a way of hammering "the Church's teachings" into my head. Today was different. Today as I said the words "We believe in one God ..." the last little piece clicked quietly into place. We, the Beloved, turn to God and for the briefest of moments we profess our Love. Even as we don't understand it; as we perhaps fear it. Worship, human worship, is a free response of the Loved to the Lover.Splendor and honor and kingly power *
are yours by right, O Lord our God,
For you created everything that is, *
and by your will they were created and have their being;
And yours by right, O Lamb that was slain, *
for with your blood you have redeemed for God,
From every family, language, people, and nation, *
a kingdom of priests to serve our God.
And so, to him who sits upon the throne, *
and to Christ the Lamb,
Be worship and praise, dominion and splendor, *
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit
for ever and for ever more.
as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.
My heart did pound and my throat closed. I don't cry, not at weddings, not at funerals, not at partings or meetings. Not for joy, not for sorrow. I have almost never shed a tear in public. But I cried. Even as my heart burst with joy. Worship.
Next week I will say those same words again and I doubt my heart will pound so hard, or that tears will come. But the knowledge will remain. We do more than repeat by rote. We do more than gather for comfort or friendship or out of habit. We worship. We turn to the God who loves us and constantly pursues us, and we say "Yes."
