WHO MADE ME A JUDGE

10 9 11

LUKE  12:13-21

ANTHONY E.ACHESON, M.DIV.

In today’s passage a man asks Jesus to take sides with him in a family dispute. The man asks Jesus to command an offending brother to share a family inheritance. Jesus responds, as he often does with an incisive question, ‘Who set me to be a judge or decider over you?’ He follows that question with an admonition. ‘Take care,’ he says. ‘Be on guard against all kinds of greed  for a person’s life does not consist in the abundance of his or her possessions.’

The primary teaching in this passage lies in that statement that this translation renders, ‘Be on guard against all kinds of greed.’ That word greed is one that needs to be deciphered a little bit. It needs to be unpacked, as a linguist might describe it. This word greed is not one I use very much. There are several reasons for that. The first is that when people use the word greed these days they often use it as a way to make an accusation. We hear the word greed used a lot in today’s  political discourse, and when it is used there, it almost always comes with an attitude attached to it; an attitude that implies kind of finger-pointing at some other person, or some other group of people who are hoarding all the money for themselves and not sharing it with others. Now, this is a complex issue because there are important realities about economic injustice that need to be faced in our culture and society. There is hoarding in our culture. We do live in an economic system that does allow small groups of people to dominate larger and larger portions of our collective wealth, and to accrue to themselves more than their fair share of material goods. That aspect of our economy is real. It’s unhealthy and it’s unfair; and is contributing greatly to major harm that is being done to large numbers people, and their children, who are being increasingly cut off from taking a full and fair part in our economic system. And that needs to be acknowledged and it needs to be dealt with.

But having said that, this word greed itself is a word I tend to avoid. There are several reasons that I do avoid it. Today I am going to touch on just one of those reasons, this fact that this word greed is often used in today’s culture as a form of accusation or judgment against others. One of the greatest intricacies of the spiritual life lies in the devilishly difficult challenge it presents us to, on the one hand, stand for better behavior in society; to stand for greater social justice and economic fairness and environmental responsibility; to do all those things, but, on the other hand, do all them in a way that is loving, and compassionate; and non-judgmental and non-accusatory.

This is an area of spiritual practice where there is a great deal we can learn from our Buddhist brothers and sisters. Let me give you an example. This past summer, several of us took part in the study group that discussed the book by a Catholic theologian Paul Knitter dealing with the dialogue between Christianity and Buddhism. Toward the end of the book the author described an inter-religious group he took part in that was engaging in activism on behalf of economic justice in Mexico. That group had both Christian and Buddhist members in it as well as members of other faiths. Let me read you a section of that book. Dr. Knitter says, “Cathy and I were in Chiapas, Mexico, with the Interreligious Peace Council at the invitation of Bishop Samuel Garcia Ruiz to help him work out a non-violent resolution to the conflict between the Zapatistas and indigenous people … Now we - peace councilors and trustees - were all gathered around a big table in Don Samuel’s house, trying to formulate a public statement for the press that would articulate our multi-religious contribution to resolving the tensions and violence. Having witnessed the suffereings inflicted on the indigenous peoples by the economic and political policies of wealthy landowners and government officials (who were taking full advantage of the recently declared North American Free-Trade Agreement or N.A.F.T.A.), we Christians were loud and clear in our insistence that we must denounce the economic and political policies of the Mexican government and of N.A.F.t.A. After all, one of the pillars of our liberation theological approach was that in order to announce the truth of the gospel, we often had to denounce the power of the oppressors.

The room quaked with our righteous declaration when one of the Buddhists at the table calmly raised his hand, and even more calmly stated: “I’m sorry, but we Buddhists don’t denounce anyone.”

“… But there you have it - on the one hand, Catholic nuns painfully picking up a gun to defend their people against the violence of injustice, and on the other, a group of Buddhists, in the face of the very same kind of violence, refusing even to denounce verbally the oppressors.” As one of the Buddhist monks put it, the main thing is to have compassion for mistakes made from ignorance, and from an egotistical point of view.

The attitude of those contemporary Buddhist monks is one we can learn something valuable from. A spiritually-based mind, and a spiritually grounded attitude is one which does not denounce or accuse. It is one which doesn’t judge because it is one which doesn’t forget that no matter how much wrong someone else does, or how many mistakes other people make, we are all involved in doing wrong things. We are all in this together when it comes to making mistakes. Mark Twain once said that, ‘Nothing needs to be reformed so much as the bad habits of other people.’

From my point of view, when we look at the approach favored by those Buddhist monks I read about a moment ago, even though it comes from a different tradition, it is nonetheless an expression of an insight that lies at the heart of our own Christian religion. Consider what Jesus encourages us to embrace in the Sermon on the Mount. Is Matthew 7, he asks the question: why do you focus so much on the splinter you see in your neighbor’s eye; but do not notice the log that is in your own eye.’ Or, how can you say to your neighbor, Let me take the splinter out of your eye, while the log is still in your own? And then notice what comes next. He says, ‘Rather, first, take the log out of your own eye and then YOU WILL BE ABLE TO SEE CLEARLY ENOUGH to take the splinter out of your neighbor’s eye. What a gem that is. First, do the work of taking the log from your own eye. First, put your primary focus on dealing with your own issues. And THEN, the more you are doing that foundational work on yourself; on your own misperceptions, on your own imperfections; on your own mistakes and ignorance;  THEN you will be able to have enough clarity; or as Jesus puts it, YOU WILL BE ABLE TO SEE CLEARLY ENOUGH to address the imperfections that do indeed exist outside of us. And here is the key to keep returning to, the primary arena for dealing with imperfection always starts at home with ourselves. And to the degree to which we keep that focus, it is then and only then we will also be able to go out into the world and help to change it; but do so in a way that does not accuse or judge. Or to put it a bit differently, we will be able to engage in our activity in the world, including our activism, in a way that is fundamentally friendly; and in a way that is fundamentally loving and compassionate.

There is a balance needed here between doing our own inner work, on the one thand; while not allowing that inner focus to become excessive or narcissistic. We need to engage in the dance of giving primary focus to fostering our inner work, while not neglecting the outer work of making the larger world a better place. It is only when we do the centrel work of inner growth that we cane engage in the outer work of social change in a fundamentally gentle and friendly way. Gentleness is not contrary to power. Gandhi was a very powerful man. Jesus was powerful. Buddha exercised power in his courageous stand of saying, ‘No,’ to the caste system in India during his lifetime. These were all figures of great power who also showed gentleness and compassion even to those they confronted and opposed.

So I invite us this Sunday morning, as we prepare for this next week, to bring that same gentleness and compassion into our own relationship with ourselves - that’s an important part of the equation here. Just as we need to be gentle and compassionate in whatever critique we bring to society, we also need to be gentle and compassionate in dealing with our own imperfections. Take some time this week to reflect on at last one specific way you know your own need to grow. Allow yourself the self-honesty of acknowledging the logs or splinters that exist in our own eye. That process of weeding and tending our own inner garden needs to precede our activity in the larger world.

I ask that the spirit of wisdom and grace and infinite compassion that exists at the heart of the universe, and at the very center of our own beings, might be with us as we continue to engage in this journey of growth and service. Amen.

DEALING WITH SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE

10 2 11

EXODUS 3:1-6, 13-14

ANTHONY E.ACHESON, M.DIV.

Today we turn our attention to the topic of spiritual experience, and how we bring such experiences into our personal relationships and spiritual communities. Virtually all the major texts that stand behind the world’s religions are expressions of important spiritual experiences of their authors, or principal characters that appear in those texts.

In the Biblical tradition, we might think, for example, of the famous story from Exodus 3 which tells of Moses seeing a bush that seemed to be burning, but was not being consumed by the fire. For Moses this was the voice of God speaking. If you or I had that event in our lives, we would call it a serious spiritual experience wouldn’t we? What would we do with an experience like that? Would we be private with it? Would we quickly go and tell people? Would we be quiet at first, but describe it later, perhaps with a few select friends? What do we do with our spiritual experiences? What use do we make of them?

Think also of the story of Elijah. One day a storm arose, strong enough to loose the rocks on the mountains. Elijah turned his ear expecting to hear the voice of God, but as hard as he listened, all he heard were rocks. Not long after that an earthquake began and Elijah expected those vibrations to be heralds of a major event, one in which he would hear the voice of God. But as he listened closely, all he did hear was the sound of shaking ground. After a while the earthquake set off a fire and once again he expected to hear God’s voice in the roar of the fire. But as he listened, Elijah didn’t hear God in the firestorm either. After time it all subsided. The storm went away. The earthquake stopped. The fire blazed itself out. Only then, when all fell silent, did Elijah hear the voice of God. He described it as a still, small voice. To him that voice at first seemed too small and insignificant to be from the almighty. But that is where he found it. Elijah came to understand that The Ultimate had not spoken to him in were loud, large-scale or dramatic events. On that day, at least, the voice of God expressed itself in a way that was small and quiet.

If you or I had an experience like that, we certainly would consider it a powerful, spiritual experience. But what would we do with it? We could ask the question this way: when we have had spiritual experiences in the past - what have we done with them? Have we kept them private for long periods of time? Have we proclaimed them loudly? Have we talked about them with a small set of friends?

Marjory Thompson, a Presbyterian minister, has written a book called Soul Feast in which she observes that people who have had vivid spiritual experiences often find no place where they feel safe or comfortable sharing them in traditional churches. She described a woman who had had a profound experience when she was 14. In a time of solitude she heard a startlingly real voice that seemed to be telling her, ‘You are my beloved child;  walk with me and you will help heal my people.’ This girl felt flooded with a sense of well-being and peace and was powerfully moved to serve God. But despite this, she had never felt free to share her experience with anyone in her family or church. She was asked about that, and she said she had learned early on that people who hear voices are considered mental cases. This woman didn’t know that there was a framework within her own faith tradition to help her interpret what had happened. She often doubted whether her experience was real, because she couldn’t imagine other people around her accepting it as real.

Although not all of us may have had experiences of the Holy as dramatic, that doesn’t mean we have never heard the still small voice of the Divine in some form. Marjorie Thompson’s account leads to an important question: to what degree do we include discussing our spiritual experiences with other people, especially in the context of our church communities. When we do have spiritual experiences, whether they seem major and dramatic, or relatively minor - are we willing to bring them into the shared space of our relationships both in our personal lives, and also in our spiritual communities, which for many of us, means the life of the church?

I want to pose two questions for us to take with us after we leave here today. First, ‘What are some of the times, places, events, experiences, in which we have felt the presence of God; what are some of the ways that we have sensed the sacred in in our lives in an way that was significant or lasting? It might have been a major experience, it might have been subtle. It may have been something that happened repetitively, or may have happened just once. What are some of those times for you personally? I encourage you to identify at least one time in your life that perhaps is the one time which carried the most realness of the presence of God, or the spirit, or the sacred. That’s the first question.

The second question is closely related to it: what have you done with that experience? Have you talked about it with other people? Have you talked about it frequently? I’m not suggesting there’s a right or wrong answer to these questions. What I do suggest is that if our pattern is to keep our spiritual experiences solely to ourselves most or all of the time, we may be depriving ourselves of a way of giving a gift to other people - because it is a gift to other people, to tell them about instances in which you have noticed the workings of the sacred. When that happens, you are taking the role of spiritual teacher to them.

Nancy and I were coming back from swimming at Caspian Lake one day this week. It was one of these clear Indian summer days we so cherish because their remaining numbers are so few. As we walked back across the lawn beside the Public Beach, and came about 10 feet from the stand of woods between the beach and Parsonage, I said to Nancy, ‘Let’s stop for a minute.’ I had been struck suddenly by the spectacular beauty around us: the glistening green of the lawn; the delicious smell of freshly cut grass; the brilliant leaves before us, some red, some orange some still green. You could see the brook starting its trek from the lake to the Connecticut River, and eventually the Atlantic. Its gentle stream was dancing with sunlight. The whole scene was sensational. In that moment my mind said, ‘Yes, there is something Divine in this world.’ That was a sense of God’s presence given to me this week. It is a joy and privilege to be able to tell you about it. Have you ever had moments like that? The details and setting may well be different. But if and as you have times like that of sensing the spirit, I encourage you to share them with others around you. When you do so, it will be a gift to them. And it will be a gift also to yourself.

Let me close with a fascinating article I came across recently that deal with our capacity for memory. A team of psychologists did a study in which they gave two groups of people an article to read, and then tested them later as to how much of the data they had retained. One group in the study read the material silently and later answered the questions. But the second group was given the instruction to read the article aloud. The psychologists discovered that the people who had spoken the data out loud, the people who had verbalized it, who had stated it aloud to somebody else in the course of doing the experiment; that group of people had a substantially higher rate of being able to remember that material than the people who had merely read it silently. That caught my attention. Since coming across that study, I have made use of it quite a bit. For example, if I’m trying to remember a phone number I’ll say it six or eight times. It’s a piece of information that really works and is helpful. That study suggests that if we bring a piece of awareness out through our physical body - in this case through speech - if we let it come all the way out through our physical being, we’re more likely to remember it.

I would argue that the same principle applies to our spiritual experiences. If we talk about our spiritual experiences, if we articulate them, if we put them into words, if we process them through spoken words -if we also process them through physical expression, through speech; and when we do so with other people, that act of expression can help solidify the memory of those experiences such that as we go into the future we can increase our access to those memories within our own being. We can more fully keep them alive and active and accessible within us. That is one tool by which we can strengthen our faith. The act of conversing about it, the act of bringing it out into our relationships with other people, is a tool and resource of the spiritual life.

As we close this morning, my encouragement to you is that you identify one or more meaningful spiritual experiences you have had in your life; that you allow them to be revitalized in our memory; and that you consider what you have done with those experiences; that you ask yourself: have I discussed or processed them with others? The act of doing so can help strengthen them in our memories, and thereby solidify our access to them as inner resources and sources of nourishment.

We ask and offer these things today trusting in the living and eternal and unshakeable presence of the spirit of God, in the living Christ, in whose name we pray.

CONFRONTING THE CLIMATE CRISIS

SEPTEMBER 4, 2011

MATTHEW 18:15-20

ANTHONY E. ACHESON, M.DIV.

This has been a sobering week here amid the beauties of Vermont as we have watched many of our fellow citizens incur great damage from Hurricane Irene. When we first heard of the storm coming up the coast few of us thought that Vermont would be one of the hardest places hit. But that happened. Our hearts go out to those whose lives have been turned upside down, not to mention those who have the overwhelming task of fixing the damage.

A few minutes ago we heard a teaching of Jesus from Matthew 18 about how to act in the face of offensive behavior. The advice Jesus gives is this: ‘if someone engages in inappropriate actions, go and point out the fault to that person. If you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you. And if that person still refuses to listen, then bring it to the whole community and raise the issue there.’

This brief passage addresses a universal dilemma that is one of the most vexing parts of life: we humans often act unwisely and badly. We often do things that inflict hurt and harm. That inescapable fact leads to an equally inescapable question: how should we respond when bad behavior happens? That is the question Jesus is addressing here in Matthew 18. The first part of Jesus’ teaching counsels us to deal with the offensive behavior through direct confrontation. The second part counsels dealing with such behaviors in stages. We begin first, on an immediate and interpersonal level. But if the problem cannot be solved on that level, we need to seek help from others. And in some cases, the problem can be solved only by bringing it into the deliberations of the whole community.

I began this talk by acknowledging the damage done by Hurricane Irene. On the surface there might seem little relationship between the effects of last week’s storm, and Jesus’ teaching here in Matthew 18. On looking deeper, however, I have come to a growing sense that this text does offer us a wisdom that is, in fact, highly relevant to our potential thinking about the hurricane we have just experienced. This section of Matthew 18 is essentially a teaching about conflict resolution, and as such it speaks directly to the increasingly major dilemma we face from the growing severity of our weather.

If we cut to the core of it, what today’s passage tells us more than anything else, is that if something goes wrong in our lives; including in the larger affairs of society; and if what is going wrong is happening because of people engaging in damaging and dangerous actions, it is essential to address and confront that hurt or harm directly and quickly. Don’t sweep it under the rug. Don’t avoid or deny it.

Does this teaching have relevance to the recent weather damage here in Vermont and beyond? The answer to that question depends heavily on whether we view today’s weather changes as a purely natural phenomenon, or as something caused by human behaviors, either wholly or in part. Today I’d like to address that question, and invite us to begin a longer-term discussion of it.

One way to begin is to take note that for quite a number of years there has been a line of thinking about climate change that that runs like this: ‘no single weather event can be blamed on global climate patterns’; or, ‘global climate change must not be held responsible for any specific storm or drought or flood.’ Such an approach has become almost an article of faith in our culture. It has attained something approaching the status of a scientific and intellectual mantra.

Today, though, I would offer a different view. Even though such statements may be technically true, there is a larger and more important sense in which they are profoundly untrue. There is a larger sense in which when people say, ‘No one weather event can be blamed on climate change,’ what they are often doing is using that technical truism as a cover for an act of psychological denial. They are engaging in a process which is essentially an act of both cognitive blindness and spiritual avoidance.

Can it definitively be said that Hurricane Irene was caused by global warming; or that global climate change is THE cause of the flooding in southern Vermont this week? No, of course, those things cannot be proved, because there have been many severe storms and floods throughout history. But even though it cannot be held that global warming caused this particular storm, there is now incontrovertible evidence of two emerging trends regarding climate that deal with long-terms weather patterns over and beyond any single, specific weather-event .

The first is this: that the bio-physical world we live in – and depend on – is today experiencing massive global distress because of weather patterns of a highly destructive and increasingly severe nature; and that these weather patterns are fundamentally new in comparison to what the human race has known in our recent climate history.

Secondly, there is now also equally clear evidence that these dangerous and disturbing weather patterns constitute a phenomenon that is caused by human beings, at the very least in part, if not, in fact primarily. I understand fully that this question of causation is both complex and controversial. I plan to address this question in more detail in a separate sermon within the next couple of months.

Having said that, however, it is an unambiguous fact of our current common life that the weather patterns around us are changing; that they are changing for the worse; that their effects are becoming increasingly destructive; and that the damages they inflict will almost certainly be becoming more frequent and more destructive, and likely devastatingly so –in the days and years to come.

In the face of this, I am here today to say that the time for you and me to be in denial and avoidance about the devastation of the climate crisis must come to an end. We need to summon from within us the courage and willingness to acknowledge and bear witness to the damage that is taking place around us. Expanded awareness of this kind is essential. But it is also essential to understand that expanded awareness itself will not solve this problem by itself. Expanded awareness will make a major difference only if it extends to real and substantial changes in how you and I, and all our fellow citizens act and live.

Those changes have to start in our own personal lives, of course. But we also need to be clear that mere individual action is not enough and cannot be enough; that the change required to heal our wounded climate must, ultimately, be society-wide and global in scope. This can happen only if we bring a sustained commitment to climate healing into the realm of our politics, and inescapably into a profound and deep restructuring of our economy itself.

The evidence for this climate crisis has now become overwhelming. It is manifesting around the globe in many ways, most especially the polarized cycles of oscillation between prolonged drought and massive flooding. These cycles of drought and flooding have, of course, provoked the immediate tragedies of lost homes and ravaged roads and farms. But beyond that, these same cycles have already had the effect of lowering global food production. This, in turn, has been pressing international food prices dangerously higher. That upward pressure on food prices, affected at least in part by climate factors, has also become a significant trigger of dangerous social unrest, one example of which can be seen in the wave of revolutions in northern Africa in the last six months.

The changes in our climate mean much more than a little more rain and a few more heat waves. To the contrary, those changes have the potential to bring a massive destabilization of the entire system of global civilization. To be in denial of those dangers; to engage in avoidance about them; to be passive about dealing with their causes and effects, is not just foolish. It is an act of spiritual irresponsibility. Denial, avoidance and irresponsibility, are qualities which we as Christian people need to claim the power to move beyond. We need to pursue a more life-honoring and sustainable way of being and acting in this increasingly small world. There are a lot of us needing to share this fragile planet, and we all need to take our portion of responsibility to preserve it. The truth of our time is that unless millions of us begin to take such responsibility, the human project has little chance of moving forward in a way that resembles a rising toward heaven. The path we are on today is aiming us, much more truthfully, on a descent toward a self-created hell.

In a few moments we will receive communion. This sacrament is a living, historic residue of the lasting effect of one man in history who refused the temptation to avoidance or denial. When Jesus saw hurt or harm being inflicted in his day, whether through active cooperation by religion or the state, through cruel and unloving practices of society, or through mere inertia, he stood resolutely for a better way. His better way was, first, to acknowledge injustice and wrongdoing when it took place; and, second, to both advocate and demonstrate a life based on the choice for love. Those of us who look to Jesus for spiritual guidance are called to follow a similar template. In the face of the temptation to deny climate change, or condone inaction about it — and our society is enthralled to both seductions –– the time has come to raise our voice and acknowledge our climate dilemma as the crisis it truly is. In truth and in fact, facing the climate crisis is the most crucial calling of our time.

In our reading for today from Matthew 18, Jesus taught his followers that if they were to come upon wrongdoing, they should confront and address it. They should do so, first, on a personal level; then in a small group, then in the larger community. These wise words of this great sage offer us a model by which to confront our culture’s unwise and unhealthy use of the God-given riches of earth. We must lovingly and courageously confront the forms of economic production and consumption that have toxified our physical surroundings. The core of this confrontation begins within our own selves and psyches. Each of us is a consumer. Each is deeply enmeshed in the wastefulness of society. Each of us is a co-creator of our environmental dilemma by the fact of our own patterns of acquisition and use. The first movement away from avoidance and denial must always begin with ourselves. But it cannot stop there. The truth-telling to which we are called must also include an educated and articulate advocacy. It is up to us to help shape the deeply necessary changes in the patterns and habits of our national and global societies.

Christ once said: ‘I have come that they might have life and have it abundantly.’ May each of us come in increasing numbers and power to proclaim the same.

Amen.

CONFRONTING THE CLIMATE CRISIS

SEPTEMBER 4, 2011

MATTHEW 18:15-20

ANTHONY E. ACHESON, M.DIV.

This has been a sobering week here amid the beauties of Vermont as we have watched many of our fellow citizens incur great damage from Hurricane Irene. When we first heard of the storm coming up the coast few of us thought that Vermont would be one of the hardest places hit. But that happened. Our hearts go out to those whose lives have been turned upside down, not to mention those who have the overwhelming task of fixing the damage.

A few minutes ago we heard a teaching of Jesus from Matthew 18 about how to act in the face of offensive behavior. The advice Jesus gives is this: ‘if someone engages in inappropriate actions, go and point out the fault to that person. If you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you. And if that person still refuses to listen, then bring it to the whole community and raise the issue there.’

This brief passage addresses a universal dilemma that is one of the most vexing parts of life: we humans often act unwisely and badly. We often do things that inflict hurt and harm. That inescapable fact leads to an equally inescapable question: how should we respond when bad behavior happens? That is the question Jesus is addressing here in Matthew 18. The first part of Jesus’ teaching counsels us to deal with the offensive behavior through direct confrontation. The second part counsels dealing with such behaviors in stages. We begin first, on an immediate and interpersonal level. But if the problem cannot be solved on that level, we need to seek help from others. And in some cases, the problem can be solved only by bringing it into the deliberations of the whole community.

I began this talk by acknowledging the damage done by Hurricane Irene. On the surface there might seem little relationship between the effects of last week’s storm, and Jesus’ teaching here in Matthew 18. On looking deeper, however, I have come to a growing sense that this text does offer us a wisdom that is, in fact, highly relevant to our potential thinking about the hurricane we have just experienced. This section of Matthew 18 is essentially a teaching about conflict resolution, and as such it speaks directly to the increasingly major dilemma we face from the growing severity of our weather.

If we cut to the core of it, what today’s passage tells us more than anything else, is that if something goes wrong in our lives; including in the larger affairs of society; and if what is going wrong is happening because of people engaging in damaging and dangerous actions, it is essential to address and confront that hurt or harm directly and quickly. Don’t sweep it under the rug. Don’t avoid or deny it.

Does this teaching have relevance to the recent weather damage here in Vermont and beyond? The answer to that question depends heavily on whether we view today’s weather changes as a purely natural phenomenon, or as something caused by human behaviors, either wholly or in part. Today I’d like to address that question, and invite us to begin a longer-term discussion of it.

One way to begin is to take note that for quite a number of years there has been a line of thinking about climate change that that runs like this: ‘no single weather event can be blamed on global climate patterns’; or, ‘global climate change must not be held responsible for any specific storm or drought or flood.’ Such an approach has become almost an article of faith in our culture. It has attained something approaching the status of a scientific and intellectual mantra.

Today, though, I would offer a different view. Even though such statements may be technically true, there is a larger and more important sense in which they are profoundly untrue. There is a larger sense in which when people say, ‘No one weather event can be blamed on climate change,’ what they are often doing is using that technical truism as a cover for an act of psychological denial. They are engaging in a process which is essentially an act of both cognitive blindness and spiritual avoidance.

Can it definitively be said that Hurricane Irene was caused by global warming; or that global climate change is THE cause of the flooding in southern Vermont this week? No, of course, those things cannot be proved, because there have been many severe storms and floods throughout history. But even though it cannot be held that global warming caused this particular storm, there is now incontrovertible evidence of two emerging trends regarding climate that deal with long-terms weather patterns over and beyond any single, specific weather-event .

The first is this: that the bio-physical world we live in - and depend on - is today experiencing massive global distress because of weather patterns of a highly destructive and increasingly severe nature; and that these weather patterns are fundamentally new in comparison to what the human race has known in our recent climate history.

Secondly, there is now also equally clear evidence that these dangerous and disturbing weather patterns constitute a phenomenon that is caused by human beings, at the very least in part, if not, in fact primarily. I understand fully that this question of causation is both complex and controversial. I plan to address this question in more detail in a separate sermon within the next couple of months.

Having said that, however, it is an unambiguous fact of our current common life that the weather patterns around us are changing; that they are changing for the worse; that their effects are becoming increasingly destructive; and that the damages they inflict will almost certainly be becoming more frequent and more destructive, and likely devastatingly so -in the days and years to come.

In the face of this, I am here today to say that the time for you and me to be in denial and avoidance about the devastation of the climate crisis must come to an end. We need to summon from within us the courage and willingness to acknowledge and bear witness to the damage that is taking place around us. Expanded awareness of this kind is essential. But it is also essential to understand that expanded awareness itself will not solve this problem by itself. Expanded awareness will make a major difference only if it extends to real and substantial changes in how you and I, and all our fellow citizens act and live.

Those changes have to start in our own personal lives, of course. But we also need to be clear that mere individual action is not enough and cannot be enough; that the change required to heal our wounded climate must, ultimately, be society-wide and global in scope. This can happen only if we bring a sustained commitment to climate healing into the realm of our politics, and inescapably into a profound and deep restructuring of our economy itself.

The evidence for this climate crisis has now become overwhelming. It is manifesting around the globe in many ways, most especially the polarized cycles of oscillation between prolonged drought and massive flooding. These cycles of drought and flooding have, of course, provoked the immediate tragedies of lost homes and ravaged roads and farms. But beyond that, these same cycles have already had the effect of lowering global food production. This, in turn, has been pressing international food prices dangerously higher. That upward pressure on food prices, affected at least in part by climate factors, has also become a significant trigger of dangerous social unrest, one example of which can be seen in the wave of revolutions in northern Africa in the last six months.

The changes in our climate mean much more than a little more rain and a few more heat waves. To the contrary, those changes have the potential to bring a massive destabilization of the entire system of global civilization. To be in denial of those dangers; to engage in avoidance about them; to be passive about dealing with their causes and effects, is not just foolish. It is an act of spiritual irresponsibility. Denial, avoidance and irresponsibility, are qualities which we as Christian people need to claim the power to move beyond. We need to pursue a more life-honoring and sustainable way of being and acting in this increasingly small world. There are a lot of us needing to share this fragile planet, and we all need to take our portion of responsibility to preserve it. The truth of our time is that unless millions of us begin to take such responsibility, the human project has little chance of moving forward in a way that resembles a rising toward heaven. The path we are on today is aiming us, much more truthfully, on a descent toward a self-created hell.

In a few moments we will receive communion. This sacrament is a living, historic residue of the lasting effect of one man in history who refused the temptation to avoidance or denial. When Jesus saw hurt or harm being inflicted in his day, whether through active cooperation by religion or the state, through cruel and unloving practices of society, or through mere inertia, he stood resolutely for a better way. His better way was, first, to acknowledge injustice and wrongdoing when it took place; and, second, to both advocate and demonstrate a life based on the choice for love. Those of us who look to Jesus for spiritual guidance are called to follow a similar template. In the face of the temptation to deny climate change, or condone inaction about it — and our society is enthralled to both seductions — the time has come to raise our voice and acknowledge our climate dilemma as the crisis it truly is. In truth and in fact, facing the climate crisis is the most crucial calling of our time.

In our reading for today from Matthew 18, Jesus taught his followers that if they were to come upon wrongdoing, they should confront and address it. They should do so, first, on a personal level; then in a small group, then in the larger community. These wise words of this great sage offer us a model by which to confront our culture’s unwise and unhealthy use of the God-given riches of earth. We must lovingly and courageously confront the forms of economic production and consumption that have toxified our physical surroundings. The core of this confrontation begins within our own selves and psyches. Each of us is a consumer. Each is deeply enmeshed in the wastefulness of society. Each of us is a co-creator of our environmental dilemma by the fact of our own patterns of acquisition and use. The first movement away from avoidance and denial must always begin with ourselves. But it cannot stop there. The truth-telling to which we are called must also include an educated and articulate advocacy. It is up to us to help shape the deeply necessary changes in the patterns and habits of our national and global societies.

Christ once said: ‘I have come that they might have life and have it abundantly.’ May each of us come in increasing numbers and power to proclaim the same.

Amen.

THE SPIRIT OF COMMUNITY

8 21 2011

LUKE 10:1-9

ANTHONY E. ACHESON, M.DIV.

It is a pleasure today to welcome the ten of you have just joined our congregation. In so doing you have the opportunity to deepen your participation in this church and through it both the larger church, and the even larger circle of spiritual seekers everywhere. Today’s reading, the first nine verses of  Luke 10, point us to some important elements of life in what we customarily call ‘church’. There are three elements in particular from this passage I want to invite us to consider.

The first is that being involved in a church involves engaging proactively in a spiritual community. Notice that when Jesus sends his followers out on their first foray of service into the larger world, he sends them out in pairs. It is noteworthy that he does not send them out merely as individuals. His choice to send them two by two is a signal that doing the work of spirit in the world is a work we do with others. Yes, of course there are aspects of spiritual development that takes place inwardly and alone, and those must not be neglected. There are, however, significant aspects of our spiritual growth and work that we do in two’s and threes, in small groups and large. The process of spiritual development is inseparable from our inherent human need to open and develop our hearts. The life of the heart is inextricably connected to the bonds and ties we make and strengthen with others. This is why we need community. Spiritual community provide both the context and the raw materials for engaging in the fundamentally spiritual work of opening and developing the heart.

The second element is that life in this form of spiritual community we call church involves the framing and articulation of a spiritual point of view and teaching. In this passage there are two elements of that teaching that are emphasized. One is the affirmation of God’s nearness. Jesus tells his followers to announce, ‘The kingdom of God is very near you.’ The second element is closely related: the centrality of peace; or, more specifically, the centrality of being in a state of peace.  Jesus counsels the pairs he is about to send out, “Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’ ” He continues, “If anyone there shares in peace. Your own peace will rest on that person. If not, it will return to you.”

Here we have an articulation of one of Jesus’ central teaching-: that maintaining a core, inner sense of peacefulness and trust is a fundamental beginning point of the spiritual life. In today’s church when we refer to ‘peace’ it is often in the context of what might be called, ‘peace activism.’ Peace activism is enormously important. All spiritually involved people need to speak and stand for addressing the problems of society in more cooperative and non-violent ways. But important as that is, that is not what is being referred to here. The root meaning of peace is to be in a state of centered calm, confidence and strength within our own selves; and to know how to maintain that state of being integrated and un-conflicted within. When Jesus refers here to our peace, ‘resting’ on another person, we might paraphrase that like this: “If you have peacefulness in your own being, that attitude and energy within you can inter-penetrate with, and cross-fertilize, the peacefulness in aother. It can enhance or re-enforce your own inner peace.” This mutual re-enforcement with others who are cultivating the same quality is a real and powerful form of, ‘peace process’ that can occur in spiritual community when it is happening in a healthy and life-affirming way.

Sometimes of course, and by contrast, we come across people who are conflicted and un-peaceful. In that case Jesus speaks of how our peace can simply ‘return’ to us. The implication is that when we are in the company of people dominated by negative emotions, we can still maintain our own sense of inner calm and quiet. Whatever peace we may want to bring to the larger world, must first be a state of being that we cultivate within our own minds and bodies. This state of peaceful being needs to be grounded in us so strongly that if we encounter external turmoil, it doesn’t ‘throw us off.’ But that can only happen if we do the work of cultivating our own sense of calm centeredness that is the fertile spiritual ground from which an unshakeable sense of peace can spring and be maintained. That is the core work, really, of the spiritual life. To attain it requires a major and sustained commitment to a serious spiritual practice.

Today’s text reminds us that the spiritual life calls us to community. It calls for an articulation of a spiritual point of view and teaching. And that brings us to our third element: doing the work of kindness and compassion through going out into the world in service. When Jesus tells his disciples the specific tasks of their work, as we hear it in verse 9, it has only two parts: tell people of the nearness of God, and heal the sick; proclaim the Divine and love those who come across your path.

There is a wonderful story told by a simple man who is a cab driver. He tells of how he was driving a shift one day when he got a call to pick up a fare. He wrote, “I arrived at the address and honked the horn. After waiting a few minutes I walked to the door and knocked. ‘Just a minute’, answered a frail, elderly voice. I could hear something being dragged across the floor. After a long pause, the door opened. A small woman in her 90’s stood before me. She was wearing a print dress and a pillbox hat with a veil pinned on it, like somebody out of a 1940’s movie.

By her side was a small nylon suitcase. The apartment looked as if no one had lived in it for years. All the furniture was covered with sheets. There were no clocks on the walls, no knickknacks or utensils on the counters. In the corner was a cardboard box filled with photos and glassware. Would you carry my bag out to the car?’ she said. I took the suitcase to the cab, then returned to assist the woman. She took my arm and we walked slowly toward the curb. She kept thanking me for my kindness. ‘It’s nothing’, I told her.. ‘I just try to treat my passengers the way I would want my own mother to be treated.’  ‘Oh, you’re such a good boy,’ she said. When we got in the cab, she gave me an address and then asked, ‘But, would you mind if we drive through downtown?’ ‘It’s not the shortest way,’ I answered quickly. ‘Oh, I don’t mind,’ she said. ‘I’m in no hurry. I’m on my way to a hospice.’

I looked in the rear-view mirror. Her eyes were glistening. ‘I don’t have any family left,’ she continued in a soft voice. ‘The doctor says I don’t have very long.’ I quietly reached over and shut off the meter.

‘Ma’am, what route would you like me to take?’ I asked. For the next two hours, we drove through the city with her directing me. She showed me the building where she had once worked as an elevator operator. We turned and drove through the neighborhood where she and her husband had lived when they were newlyweds. She had me pull up in front of a furniture warehouse that had once been a ballroom where she had gone dancing as a teen-ager.

Sometimes she’d ask me to slow in front of a particular building or corner and would sit staring into the darkness, saying nothing. As the first hint of sun was creasing the horizon, she suddenly said, ‘I’m tired. We’d better go now’.

And this time, in silence, we did drive to the address she had given me. It was a low building, like a small convalescent home, with a driveway that passed under a portico. Two orderlies came to the cab as soon as we pulled up. They were solicitous and intent, watching her every move. They must have been expecting her.

I opened the trunk and took the small suitcase to the door. The woman was already seated in a wheelchair. ‘How much do I owe you?,’ she asked, reaching into her purse. ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘You have to make a living,’ she answered. ‘There are other passengers,’ I assured her.

Almost without thinking, I bent and gave her a hug. She held onto me tightly. ‘You know, you gave an old woman just a few moments of joy today,’ she said. ‘I thank you.’ I squeezed her hand, and then walked into the dim morning light. Behind me, a door shut. It heard it as the sound of the closing of a life. I didn’t pick up any more passengers that shift. I drove aimlessly lost in thought. For the rest of that day, I could hardly talk. What if that woman had gotten an angry driver that day, or one who was impatient to end his shift? What if I myself had refused to take the run, or had honked once, and then driven away because no one responded quickly? On a quick review, I don’t think that I have done anything more important in my life, because I think I helped that woman have one final moment of review of her life. We are so conditioned to think that our lives revolve around great, pivotal moments. But great moments often catch us unaware, beautifully wrapped in what others may consider a very small one.’

To me that is a lovely story of one person who in an unexpected moment had the ability and the grace to act with kindness; to offer  out the simple gift of a couple of hours of his time for free,  and thereby showed mercy and kindness and compassion to a person who needed it in a specific way, an a specific moment.

This story is a small nugget that points us to a large part of what the church is. Yes, we need to create community, in part for the further unfolding of our own selves. Yes, we need to engage in our own inner work cultivating an expanding peacefulness within ourselves, and articulating a teaching about that peacefulness and about the nearness and availability of God. But all of those things only come to fruition if and as we let them radiate out from us in acts of kindness and compassionate love. My hope and prayer for the ten of us who have newly joined this church, as for all of us who take part in this church, is that we would increasingly be people who  are doing all these things: building a stronger community, articulating spiritual truth. And may we be people who, most importantly, live that truth out in acts of kindness and compassion, love and service.

We ask all these things today trusting in the name and the ongoing presence through grace of the Christ who taught us each of these things. In his name we pray it. Amen.

CHRIST AND CONSCIOUSNESS

7 24 2011

MATTHEW 25:1-13

ANTHONY E. ACHESON, M.DIV.

What is the most central quality of spirituality? Although spirituality is too large a field for any single definition, the word I would choose for the most central quality of spirituality would be, ‘consciousness.’ I understand that that might sound odd in a sermon in a New England Congregational church. Someone might object and ask, ‘That word, ‘consciousness,’ doesn’t even appear in the New Testament, does it?’  The answer to that question isn’t as straightforward as it might seem. The surface answer is, ‘No, that word, ‘consciousness,’ does not appear in any major English translation of the Bible. But the answer will also be, ‘Yes,’ in the sense that there are a plethora of passages in the teachings of Jesus which are precisely about consciousness, even if the translators have chosen to use different words to accommodate that concept.

As an example, consider today’s story from the gospel of Matthew. I grew up hearing this referred to as ‘The Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins.’ [We would do well to pay attention to the titles that have long been associated with Bible stories, such as The Prodigal Son, or the Good Samaritan. Virtually none of these titles appear in the Bible itself, and several of them are quite misleading.]  A better name for today’s story might be, ‘The Parable of Those Who Stayed Awake.’  In the last line, Jesus says, ‘Blessed are those who stay awake.’  That is the clear punch line.  What does that word, ‘awake,’ mean?  It refers to being conscious, which is the real main point of this story, as is the case in many other passages in Jesus’ teachings. We could just as easily translate that verse to read, ‘Blessed are those who keep themselves conscious;’ or, ‘Blessed are those who are fully aware.’

As another example, consider some verses we often hear during Advent. We hear the phrases, ‘Watch;’ or, ‘Watch and pray,’ repeated frequently in Advent.  What does it mean to watch?  It means to be aware, to be conscious.  It means to have your attention clearly and proactively focused on something.  It refers to the state of mind in which we seek to become cognizant of what we are watching, to become more aware of it, to become more knowing as a result of looking at it.  Consider as well that wonderful statement from the Gospel of John where Jesus says, ‘If you are my disciple you will remain in my word, and you will know the truth and the truth shall set you free.’ [The word disciple, incidentally, means student.  A disciple is one who comes under a discipline, a process whereby you come under the tutelage of a teacher to obtain a body of knowledge.] Jesus is saying if you are my disciple, you will do what do students do; namely, become conscious of a certain subject, and that consciousness, that awareness and knowledge of a set of truths, will lead to a form of liberation. The translators of this verse could just have easily have translated it by saying, ‘If you continue in my word you shall become conscious of the truth, and your consciousness of the truth shall set you free.’ This is very much a verse about consciousness, even though the translators of our various Bible editions have used different words.

Think also of the times that Jesus uses the phrase, ‘Those who have ears to hear let them hear.’ What does it mean to hear? It means to listen very carefully. It means to be proactively attentive. It means the same as to watch, except the metaphor is sound oriented rather than sight oriented.  Having ears to hear means to become genuinely conscious of what is happening in your surroundings; to become genuinely conscious of what is most important in your surroundings; to become genuinely awake as to what your surroundings are saying to you.

Let me draw our attention to another set of statements Jesus makes in the Sermon on the Mount when he says, ‘Consider the lilies of the field; consider the birds of the air.’ When we hear those phrases we tend most usually to think about, or to let our imaginations run in the direction of the lilies and the birds. But the key word in those verses is really, ‘consider.’ That is the verb, and that is the main meaning of those teachings; that we put ourselves into a certain frame of mind in which we, ‘consider’ things in a certain way. In this case we are encouraged to focus our attention on certain qualitie that can be found in nature, in this case in birds and lilies. Yes, the lilies and birds have their own importance because there is something in them that is worth seeing. But what is most important to US is the degree to which we proactively ‘consider’ them; the degree to which we focus our vision on them. And why should we consider them and focus on them? We should do so in order that we might become more conscious about how their aliveness expresses itself. We should do so in order that we might specifically notice the fear-free quality that they embody. The key is not simply that the lilies and birds are wonderful, true as that may be. The key is that we ourselves become conscious of what their wonderfulness is comprised of. And that happens only to the degree that we ‘consider’ them; that we proactively focus our consciousness on them; and that we become, consequently, more knowledgeable about how that aliveness happens. Jesus is saying, ‘Take your consciousness and focus it on something. Study it. Think about it. Learn from it.  Be conscious of the lilies and birds; notice the qualities of life they can show you that you probably will miss when you don’t consider them carefully. And notice, or consider, or be consciously aware of the qualities that still exist in them in their natural state that you yourself may have become alienated from, specifically their fear-free trusting, confident state.’  The translators in this case used the word, ‘consider.’ But they could just as easily have translated it using other words. They could just as easily have translated this passage as, ‘Be conscious of the lilies of the field.’ Or, ‘Be conscious of the birds as you see them flying through the air.’ In that same vein, the translators of the New Testament could just as easily said, ‘Be conscious of the truth and the truth will set you free.’  Jesus is very much a teacher of consciousness, even though the most frequent translator of the New Testament don’t use this word.

Think also of the recurring role held by the imagery of light in the New Testament.  Jesus refers to light often.  He says that God is light.  He says of himself, ‘I am the light of the world’ [which might also be understood as, 'I am light in the world.'] When speaking to his disciples, he says, ‘You are the light of the world.’ Light is an important image. Why does Jesus use it so much?  Indeed, why has the imagery of light been so prevalent as a metaphor for spirit throughout religious history?  The answer lies in the way that light enables us to see things; i.e., the way that light allows us to become more aware and conscious.  When it’s dark, when it’s the middle of the night, if you are, perhaps, out walking and can’t see anything, you’re going to stub your toe or stumble. But when the sun is out, or when the lights are on, you can walk or run where you will. You can make your way and move forward. Why? Because the light allows you to see. It allows you to be aware. It allows you to become conscious of your conscious of what is going on in your physical surroundings.  The light allows you to be conscious of what your options are; it helps show you where to walk or not to walk. And that same light that allows you to see also warms you. It lifts your spirits. [People like myself who suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder tend to be highly conscious of the power of the light that comes from the sun, which is our main source of light.] Those are among the reasons why Jesus, and indeed many spiritual traditions, put so much emphasis on light.

Here is another example. Think about the wonderful statement that Jesus makes in the Sermon on the Mount when he says, ‘If thine eye be single, thy whole body will be full of light.’ [King James translation.]  What does that mean? It refers to your consciousness being unified and integrated. When your consciousness is unified and integrated, the result is that you are enabled to perceive the fundamental unity and integration of the world and universe you are looking at.  Under those circumstances, i.e., to the degree to which you are accurately conscious, then your whole being will be filled with that light we just talked about.  If our consciousness and our perception is unified and focused, then we will be in a position to allow the light which is God, and the light of the world which is found in Christ, and the light which we, in our truest divine selves are, to be working at peak level within us.  If our eye and our perception are single and concentrated and focused then it will be possible for the light, which is the true nature of the universe at its most real levels, to be alive and active and at work within us in an unfettered way.

We’ll return to this subject again. In the meantime, I invite you this Sabbath Sunday to a time of self-reflection about what tools may help you become more conscious of spiritual reality, whether it be through memory, or imagination, or something else entirely. May we move into our week remembering that if we seek we will find, if we ask it will be answered, and if we knock the door will be opened.  We ask for all these things in name of the one who promised them, Jesus. In his name we pray it. Amen.

HILL AND MOUNTAIN

5 15 11

LUKE 9:28-36

ANTHONY ACHESON, M.DIV

In the mid-nineties there was a British comedy called, “The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain,” it which two English map makers, one played by Hugh Grant, arrive at a Welsh village to measure the town’s mountain. After several days of careful measurements, the surveyors dutifully tell the townsfolk that their mountain is, in fact, not a mountain but only a hill. It lacks the officially designated definition of a mountain by 16 feet.

The people in the town are devastated, including the local pastor, Rev Jones. This preacher, played by Kenneth Griffith, is a passionate man of considerable age who has become convinced that the height of the mountain -or hill - is directly correlated with the degree to which God’s revelation is available to his town and congregation. This conviction leads the good pastor to rail from the pulpit against the surveyors who are not properly accrediting the mountain status near their town. The people fret and worry and try to convince the Englishmen to, please, call their hill a mountain. “It’s a mountain to us!” they exclaim.
“Ahh, but it’s not truly a mountain, is it now?” comes the reply.
And so the people do the only thing they can. Pail by pail they began hauling dirt up the hill to increase its height to mountain status. After several days, and hundreds of trips, up the hill, the townsfolk at last succeed in their goal of making sure that their town had a legitimate, official mountain.
Why go to all that trouble over 16 feet of dirt? Mountains are magical things. When you get to the top of a mountain, you see the world in a whole new way. The biblical writers know the importance of mountains. When big things happen in Scripture, they often happen on a near a mountain. After the flood, Noah parks the ark on a mountain, Mt. Ararat. Moses goes up a mountain, Mt Zion to receive the Ten Commandments. And, then, at the end of his life, Moses again scales a mountain, this time Mt. Nebo, to get a glimpse of the Promised Land. And again in the New Testament when we are presented the core collection of Jesus’ teachings, Matthew goes to great pains to tell us that this teaching also was given on a mountain: hence, the name, Sermon on the Mount. And then again at the very end of Matthew’s gospel, Chapter 28, in the final 5 verses, we hear that the resurrected Christ directed the disciples to go to Galilee, but not just to Galilee; we hear that they went ‘to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them.’ As you can see, in the Bible, mountains are important because when big things happen they often happen on mountains. And that perspective might make us a bit more sympathetic to the Rev. Jones and the townspeople who felt it was important for their town to be graced by the presence of a mountain.
In today’s story from Luke 9, we have yet another reminder of the importance of mountain-imagery in the Bible. In this story, Jesus takes Peter, John, and James with him, once again up a mountain, and, predictably, something important happens. In the midst Jesus ‘praying, his countenance changes, his face looks different, his clothes begin to glow. Then Moses and Elijah appear with Jesus and the three of them talk together about Jesus’ coming departure. Certain that something big is happening, Peter blurts out the first thing that comes to mind. “It is good for us to be here,” he said. “Let us make three dwellings-one each for Jesus, Moses and Elijah.” Peter sensed that something big was happening and he was right. Jesus was, after all, physically and visually transfigured, and he was convening with the two supreme figures in Jewish history, Moses and Elijah. They symbolize, respectively, what Judaism refers to as The Law, and The Prophets. So, yes, something important WAS happening, but the really important thing was yet to happen. Because as soon as Peter stopped speaking, a cloud descends on them and they hear a voice that says, “This is my Son, listen to him.” Then, suddenly, it’s just the four of them again; the three disciples and Jesus alone. Yes, that was something major in importance. The location of that event, the transfiguration, is the kind of event that has become incorporated into the vernacular of our language when we refer to someone having a ‘mountaintop experience.’

Now this has some important elements to it. One of those elements is found in Peter’s suggestion that he set up three tents or dwellings to provide a shelter for Jesus, Moses and Elijah. Why did he offer that? One clue is that he made that offer just as Moses and Elijah were departing. So one possible reason Peter was looking for a place to place them was to try to find a way to hold on to that remarkable experience; to maintain or sustain it. That’s one possible perspective.

The story also uses the phrase, ‘he didn’t know what he was saying.’ So this is presented as something that even Peter himself didn’t fully understand, and he simply blurted those words out. In today’s language we might say he wasn’t fully conscious of why he was suggesting that. There’s a sense in the story that the whole scene is a little too much for Peter. He was encountering things that were both powerful and unfamiliar. He had never seen before. I have the sense that what Peter saw was so different from his past experience, from his usual memory bank, that he had a powerful need not only to hold onto it, but to try to fit that unusual and highly different experience into a form, into an explanatory context that was closer to usual, closer to familiar. This experience was so different for Peter he had a need to frame it in a way that was usual and predictable. Peter seems to have a need to whittle that large experience into a framework that was smaller and more explainable and more manageable. He wanted to put it into a recognizable box, to set up some monuments or some familiar locations for this experience. ‘Let’s creates some tents, or dwellings,’ he says.

From one point of view what Peter is doing is trying to make the magical mundane; he’s trying to domesticate divinity. To use the terms of the movie I mentioned earlier, turn the image around in the opposite direction; we might see peter as a disciple who goes up a mountain, but wants to come down a hill. When he is overwhelmed by that mountain experience he tries to small it down. On that mountain, Jesus is seen by Peter literally in a new light. I think there’s an encouragement implicit in that, for us to be opening ourselves continually to seeing Jesus in a new light. If we understand Jesus as a being who shows us deeply what God is all about; if we understand Jesus as a being who is a window into God (and those are core ways I understand Jesus) what happens when we do see Jesus in a way that we’ve never seen him before? What happens when we do see Jesus in a new light? What do we do when we see Christ in ways we’ve never seen him before? Do we allow ourselves to experience the mountain (or the hill) in a completely new way, or do we do our best to whittle down a remarkably large experience into categories that we are already used to and are already known to us?

In the final scene of The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill But Came Down A Mountain, the narrator says that just before filming, the mountain had been measured again, and alas, even though the villagers had indeed added another 20 feet, since the time of the measurement, the mountain had settled, and after decades of settling, the mountain was once again just a hill. As the camera fades, the descendents of the original townspeople begin bringing dirt up again, pail by pail, having decided once more to make it a mountain. What is it about this movie that makes it comedic? The element that produces humor is that the characters take verbal definitions and specific physical entities way too seriously. That’s where the comedy lies. The definition of the mountain is not important. The beauty of it would be important, but not the definition of it. But even beyond that, the physical fact of having a physical mountain is itself not ultimately important. If there is a beautiful mountain nearby that could be nice. But there could be a some flat farmland nearby and that could be equally nice. What makes the premise of the movie funny is it reminds us that how we define something is not really that important. And the quantity of any specific physical thing we have is also not that important. In the movie, the people were taking something irrelevant and acting as if it were highly relevant. That’s what Peter was doing.

The transfigured Jesus did not need a physical tent to go rest in at that moment, and however you may interpret Moses and Elijah in that story, certainly they didn’t need any physical tents to rest in, as beings who had left the physical world quite a few centuries previously. Peter himself may well have felt the need to take a breather, but he was taking a solution that may have been appropriate to himself personally; taking a past experience and trying to apply it to a radically new and unique present experience. So as we read that story, we chuckle that Peter was trying to apply a solution that might have worked for a past situation, but to try to apply it to the new situation was not appropriate.

Our faith lives provide us similar choices all the time. There are many instances of that. Let’s consider just one of them. If we were to ask the question, ‘What is the most important arena for working out our moral responsibility or our ethical responsibility; if we were to ask that question, it would be interesting for each of us to observe what comes into our minds. There is, of course, no one right answer to that question. But if we sought to formulate a serious answer to that question, the answer would have to be substantially different today than from most any other period in human history. We do know that civilization as we roughly define it has been around roughly 10,000 years; because it has been about that long that humans created agriculture. Without agriculture you can’t have complex civilizations. So within the last 10,000 years, we have been faced with the question of how we behave within these complex situations, and that gave rise to ethics and various systems of law that came in through the Egyptians and Jews and Romans right up to our own time. I would suggest if we were to formulate the most central moral issue of our time, I would say near the heart of that answer would be the responsibility to take care and responsibility for the entire bio-system of this world. I personally would say that is at the heart of our moral responsibility at this point.

As a Christian, I would say that tending and exercising stewardship over the bio-system of this world is the primary ethical issue of our time. I would say it is the primary ethical issue of the Christian Church. Up until the last few years someone asking that question would never have said that. Someone asking that question 200 years ago wouldn’t have said that because the bio-system of the earth wasn’t being threatened at that time. And we weren’t threatening it. But today it is being threatened, and it is us humans that are threatening it. Therefore the definition of our primary moral responsibility is fundamentally different now than any time that it ever has been in the past. The answer to our earlier question about how our moral responsibility is framed has to be deeply new. There are some elements of the answer that we can use from the past; the principal of responsibility, of love, compassion, the principles of sharing and interdependence and mutual respect. Those principals have been around for a long time, so we’ve got a lot of old truth to draw from. But if we ask ourselves what the fundamental moral and ethical issues of our time are, we can’t put them back in the conceptual tents or dwellings that we might have used 100 years ago or 200 or 500 years ago.

Peter looks a little foolish when he says, ‘We want to fit Moses and Elijah into a tent that can be built.’ I would say that we would look foolish to a future generation if people looked back on us and saw that as we attempted to be moral and ethical people in our own time, we tried to answer those issues in purely individual terms having to do with merely personal moralities. Individual moral behavior is, of course, highly important. But if we try to define moral and ethical behavior primarily in individual terms today, then we will look very foolish to future generations. They will look back on us and say how could they have missed what was central in their time? How could those people in the beginning of the 21^st century have missed the core issue, which was keeping alive and healthy the very systems needed for clean air and water, and producing food and maintaining harmony with the natural order?

The old tents and dwellings always need to be updated. When the law and the prophets and the great spiritual teacher appear to us, we need to be careful not to try to fit them back into the old wineskins. We need to be ready to allow them to come to us and be with us in radically and profoundly new ways. I would suggest that our care of the bio-system is one of those fundamentally new ways in our time.

As we close we ask that the spirit of life would increasingly teach and inform us, and remind us that new occasions bring new duties, and that new wine requires new skins. We pray all these things trusting in the name and the power and presence of the living Christ. Amen.

IN PRAISE OF MOTHERS

5 8 2011

JOHN 14:15-234

ANTHONY E.ACHESON, M.DIV.

In today’s gospel passage, we hear Jesus preparing his disciples for the time when he won’t be with them any longer. And at the heart of his attempt to help and prepare them for this loss and great transition he promises that he will send them a helper and comforter. He speaks to them as a parent might, and says, as we just heard it read in verse 18, “I will not leave you as orphans.” That image of not becoming an orphan is one that a parent might use to want to reassure a child. Jesus goes on, “For even though you won’t see me, I will send you a helper or comforter to be with you.” That helper, of course, would be available in invisible form just as Jesus had been with them in visible form. The Greek word for helper or comforter as we hear it in this passage is “parakletos,” which means very literally, “one who is called alongside.” The Greeks used this word to mean a variety of different things.  A “parakletos” might be a person who was called in to give witness in a law court in someone’s favor; he might be an advocate, lawyer,  called in to plead the cause of someone under indictment for something which would result in a serious penalty if convicted; she might be an expert called in to give advice in some difficult situation; she might also be a person called in when, for example, a company of soldiers were dispirited and discouraged to put new resolve into their minds and hearts. Always a “parakletos” is someone called in to help in time of trouble or need. A “parakletos” is someone or something you want to be available to call on or call in when you are in serious trouble. Jesus was offering and promising this “parakletos” as a gift; and in a sense he was offering it as his highest and most important gift as he was about to leave them In physical form.

What is the most important gift that we could give another person? There are many wonderful gifts that we can and do give. But at the deepest levels of things, the most important gift we can really ever give to another person is the gift of our presence. In sending his Spirit, Christ is sharing the gift of the Divine presence in our lives. When we come on difficult times, that Spirit is there to comfort and strengthen us if and as we are willing to seek it out. And where do we look for that spirit? Jesus tells his disciples: “I will send the Spirit to be within you”. The Spirit wants our hearts to be the source and resting place of love. And as we let the Spirit into our lives, we soon discover that it is not in the nature of the spirit to simply stay there. It is in the nature of God’s presence not just to comfort us, but also to be comfort to those around us, and especially on this day-for those of us who are lucky enough to still have them with us, to our mothers.

For most of us our human mothers have been very much the specific face of this Divine comfort we’ve just been talking about.  When we fell in the playground and scraped our knees, we would run to Mom and she would hold us and wipe away our tears. And although this is not universally true for all mothers - and inescapably, some mothers are better than others — more often than not, they were very much there in times of need to strengthen us when we were down.

And important as it is to have received those gifts, how much more important is it to learn more and more what it is to pass that love on ourselves. Several years ago there was a country and western song called, “Roses for Mama.” In the song, it is Mother’s Day, and a man goes to a florist shop to buy his mother a bouquet.  He knows he should visit his mother, but he has more important things to do, and he decides to have the FTD folks deliver them as a substitute.  So he goes into the flower shop, and when he gets there there is a little boy ahead of him at the counter who wants to buy some roses for his own mother, but he doesn’t have quite enough money.  And the man is feeling pretty generous and gives the boy the money he needs. And then, when it’s his turn, he orders an even more expensive bouquet to be delivered in the next state to his own mother.

So after he finishes the transaction, the man goes out and gets in his car. And as he drives away from the flower shop, just a few minutes later he sees that same little boy that was in the flower shop, except that when he sees him now, the little boy is in a cemetery. And in that cemetery that little boy is kneeling right next to a grave, the bouquet of roses in his hand. And when the man sees this he’s touched and he stops his car and goes in and asks the little boy what he’s doing. The boy explains that his mother has been dead for a year, and that he comes there all the time to talk to her and, on this special day, to give her some special flowers. And so as we get to the end of this country song, when the grown man hears that from the child, something ‘clicks’ inside that man’s heart. He ‘gets it’ and on an impulse turns around, and drives back to the florist and tells him to cancel the delivery part of his order. This time, he says, he’s gonna deliver those roses himself. Country music can be corny sometimes. It’s not the genre of music I listen to the most. But sometimes some songs like that they can hit the mark about what’s human and what’s important and that struck me as one of those songs..

So-today, on this day for our Mother’s, this is, of course, very much a day to honor and appreciate our mothers. And then secondly, today is also a day to be reminded that our mothers will always be with us. Even after they have passed on beyond this life, we will hold their memories in our hearts. Some of us have lost our mothers. But  not only do we hold their memories dear, but the influence they had on our lives becomes a permanent legacy, a permanent imprint on our psyches, a permanent imprint on who and what we are, long after their physical presence was left behind.

If you and I were to probe deep within our psyches to discern who has exercised the most influence in our lives, I have little doubt that for many of us -possibly for most of us — that person would be our mother. For good or for bad, and even if unconsciously, they have left an imprint on our lives and psyches like no one else.

And so, to all our mothers, here and elsewhere, living and dead, we salute you and we salute your precious gift of motherly love, and mothering love; and we salute the memories of your good gifts and examples. And behind all of that we salute the true Source of that love and indeed of all love, the Divine Love that springs from our Mother and Father who art in Heaven, whose name we hallow each Sunday at worship. And as we honor today both our human mothers and also that Heavenly Mother-Father God, we remember this great word of truth that God is love, and that whoever abides in love abides in God and God in them. May we all grow in the knowing and the doing of such Divine Love through the grace and power of the living God in whose name we offer and pray all these things. Amen.

COMMUNION HOMILY

5 1 2011

MARK 5:21-43

ANTHONY E.ACHESON, M.DIV.

Some of you may just possibly be old enough to remember the days when you could save up your allowance or earn a dime or a quarter so that you could go to the movie theater on a Saturday afternoon.  Once there, you might be treated to a newsreel of the world’s weekly events, and also that week’s serial installment in the adventures of the Green Hornet or the Lone Ranger. And then if you were lucky, you might be treated to not one but TWO movie features that would keep you up-to- date about the latest developments in Gene Autry’s or Roy Rogers’ battles against the forces of evil.  And all that was yours for the low price of one sleek little quarter! Times have changed a little since?

Today’s gospel reading from the fifth chapter of Mark is a little bit like those old-fashioned double features.  Mark begins by telling us about the little twelve year old who has gotten sick unto death. But the story isn’t really about her so much, as it is about her father. Her father is not only a man of faith, but he is also a man who is prominent in the community. He is a Roman, which automatically gives him high status. But he is also in the class of what were in those days called ‘God-fearers’, who were Gentiles that had converted to Judaism and become active in a synagogue. Because of this, in coming to Jesus for help, Jairus is taking a risk. He is risking his good standing both in his synagogue, and potentially also in the Roman community his reputation, because Jesus was a controversial man in both groups.

Jairus knows that Jesus is controversial. But he also has a daughter who is sick and he clearly adores her. He has heard about Jesus the healer and possibly seen him in action. Jairus appears to believe that this Jesus is the only hope for him and his daughter. So, he is willing to risk all his social respectability, he is willing to risk his approval ratings so to speak, to come to this itinerant preacher to ask for help.

But then in addition to Jairus our attention is drawn into the second act of our double feature in today’s readings.  Someone else is seeking Jesus’ attentions.  This time, though, instead of boldly running right up to him, falling at Jesus’ feet and begging a favor, this seeker timidly reaches out from the crowd, just hoping to touch the hem of Jesus’ robe.

By contrast to the high social position enjoyed by Jairus, this woman had been cast aside.  No one would claim her as his own. We are told that she had had a female disorder for 12 years.   We have to remember that medical knowledge had not gotten past the superstition stage while Jesus walked this earth.  So this woman who had been bleeding for twelve years was regarded as unclean, which according to the purity laws of the Judaism of the day left her open to be scorned as untouchable, even cursed by a god.

Because of her disorder this woman couldn’t take part in any ritual actions of worship.  She couldn’t even lead the weekly Sabbath prayers for her family.  Because she was constantly bleeding, she was not able to bear children.  If she had been married, her husband had the legal right to dispose of her through divorse no questions asked.  Without a husband or her father to take care of her, this woman would be forced into life on the streets unless some kind, independently wealthy woman or other relative would take pity on her.  And whether or not that happened people would talk about her, clicking their tongues and inwardly thanking their lucky stars that THEY were not in her sandals.

Jesus approach was obviously very different.  Jesus was not ruled by heartless rules. Jesus was ruled by the heart and by compassion.  Before anyone else knew what had happened, Jesus realized that a person of great faith had reached out to him. God had healed this woman of her 12-year nightmare, and Jesus wanted to know all about it.  Who could it be in this great crowd who had a reason to celebrate?  “Who touched my clothes?” he asked. And, then, in fear and trembling, the woman fell down before him and told him the whole truth. You can understand why this woman was afraid.  Other people treated her as if she were dirt.  Would this rabbi do the same?

But she knew from his first word that Jesus would not reject her.  Daughter,” he says.  In that one word, the woman’s social standing in this town was restored.  Recognizing the miracle that had taken place, Jesus released her with the blessing used in the synagogue,  “Go in peace.”  Finally, she was restored to wholeness.  Jesus’ love and compassion gave her new life and raised her from the depths of despair.

But, let’s go back to Jairus now for a moment. As our Saturday morning double feature presents things to us, things weren’t going well.  While Jesus was still speaking to the healed woman, some people came from Jairus’ house with the terrible news that his daughter had already died.  They tried to convince him to leave the teacher alone.  Maybe he could still recover some of his dignity if he’d just come home with them and stop making such a fuss.

But before Jairus could make up his mind, before he had even fully comprehended the pain of his daughter’s death, Jesus reached out to him with words of hope: “Do not fear, only believe.”  With those words they hurried off together so Jesus could, in turn, reach out to the little girl herself.  But what a scene confronted them when they got there. Because this man was a prominent public figure, people had gathered outside his house weeping and wailing as custom had trained them to do. Jesus asked them why they were making such a commotion when the child was not dead but sleeping.  And, they laughed at him.  Then Jesus put all these scoffers outside and taking only the girl’s parents into the room Jesus reached out and took her by the hand.  “Little girl,” he said, “get up.”  And, with the same amazement the healed woman had experienced, this daughter was raised to new life.

Today we have come together to hear Jesus’ words of healing to each of us.  The same God who was and is in Christ so richly and transparently, also reaches out to YOU today, and reaches out to me, to say as well, “Do not fear, only believe.”  Whatever may be causing you or me to die a premature death of our hope or compassion or aliveness, whatever may be causing us to fear the future, to be separate from those we love–we are invited today to give all those wounds and ills over to God, to give all those wounds and ills over to the Divine and spiritual side of our lives.  We are invited today to let his life-giving words comfort and encourage us.

And, as we gather around this table in just a few minutes to celebrate the tangible expression of that love and hope, let’s listen for those words that call to each of us as daughters and sons as well.  Through the witness of this sacrament, we know that Jesus’ act of self-giving both on the cross and in his life and in his mystical presence now to be an ultimately accurate depiction of God’s love for us.  In the nourishing nectars of this sacrament, the same healing and restoration known by that woman and that child are offered to us as well.

The invitation of the gospel is to take that promise of God’s love and goodness first into our hearts and mind, then into our very bodies through the elements of this sacrament, and then out into the world this week in higher and strengthened and amended lives.   As Jesus put it, we are invited to, “Go in peace.” May it be richly so today through this communion, and indeed always. And this we ask through the living and risen Christ.  Amen.

THE RIDDLE OF THE RESURRECTION

4 24 2011

JOHN 20:1-18

ANTHONY E. ACHESON, M.DIV.

We join voices today with countless Christians around the earth and across time who make the common proclamation that, “Christ is risen! He is risen indeed.” At the very center of this proclamation is the affirmation that death is not the end of the story and that life after this life is as real and sure as the life we know today.

Many of us can remember our excitement as children when we heard the tales of great pioneers like Lewis and Clark, Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett. As a grade school age child I remember being particularly excited by the adventures and exploits of great explorers such as Columbus or Cortes, Walter Raleigh or Francis Drake, Vasco da Gama, Magellan and so forth. These were great men in their day and time who gave the world great service by expanding our sense of the world and its possibilities.

But the services that historic figures such as those I just mentioned gave us pales when compared to the work achieved by Christ. Those men I just mentioned explored the ends of the earth, but Christ explored the very mysteries of life and death itself. They expanded our knowledge of the physical world, but Christ expanded our knowledge of the infinite world of Spirit. They mastered the seven seas, but Christ mastered the gyrations of suffering and faith.  Those explorers did indeed have the courage to face death with courage, but Christ faced down the very powers of darkness itself, and thereby gave us humanity’s premier demonstration that the Divine supersedes the demonic, and that though death and evil are strong, life and goodness are still stronger.

People often ask about the literal details of what happened in that Easter tomb. The resurrection stories in the Bible itself suggest that what did happen remains in the realm of considerable mystery. We have taken note in the past that when Mary met the risen Christ in the garden, she did not recognize him physically as Jesus. That is an important element in this story. The same is true in Luke 24 for the two men who walked and talked with the resurrected Christ on the road to Emmaus. Luke says he WAS the resurrected Christ, but those two men spent most of the day conversing with him and he did not physically resemble Jesus of Nazareth.

This lack of physical resemblance between the risen Christ and Jesus of Nazareth in those two texts (there are other accounts in which there is resemblance) is part of the riddle of the resurrection. A careful reading of these two passages shows that they do not depict resurrection as the resuscitation of a human body. They are clearly describing something different than a mere return to biological life. To my eye, what those texts are telling us is that the resurrection is not less miraculous, but even more miraculous than the way we often conceive it, as a resuscitation of bodily life. They are telling us that the risen Christ had come into a level of both spiritual being; and also spiritual skill and power at which he could use and transform any and every substance, including what used to be his physical body. He had come into the capacity to manifest himself to his followers in whatever form they most needed and were best able to perceive him in, so that they could grasp his eternal aliveness both in the world beyond physical form, as well as in this world which you and I still call home.

The resurrection event involved a release of energy of major proportions. In my belief that release of energy did not manifest as a resuscitated corpse. It did not manifest as a dead body being brought backward to its previous biological functions. What occurred, rather, was a going forward to an entirely new form of existence. The resurrection event could be thought of as analogous to the emergence of a new species. It unveiled a new form of life and being that is both beyond biology, while at the same time retaining the power to express itself to those who are still experiencing biological life. To use another analogy still, you and I are beyond needing nursery rhymes to help us go to sleep or to bring us comfort. But if the situation calls for it, you and I still have the power to sing nursery rhymes or to tell children’s stories when that is what a sick or sleepy child most needs to hear. In the same manner, after his physical life, Jesus was beyond needing a physical body as a modality for being alive or experiencing aliveness. But the risen Christ though he was beyond needing physical form, still had the capacity to use physical form and to be perceived in physical form in ways that the people of that time did not understand, and in ways that you and I still are only beginning to understand.

Consider the way the risen Christ did appear to his early followers. Consider the fact that the risen Christ of John 20 appeared like a gardener but did not look like Jesus. And consider the fact that the risen Christ of the Road to Emmaus story, appeared like a foreign traveler but did not look like Jesus. And consider the fact that the risen Christ of Acts 1 appeared like a heavenly being moving up through the clouds but did not like Jesus as that happened. And consider the fact that the risen Christ that came to Paul on the Damascus Road story of Luke 9 appeared there as a loud voice from heaven and did not look like Jesus, and in fact did not appear physically at all. When we consider all these things, what we realize is that the primary view of resurrection in the New Testament is not a story about a deceased body being reconstituted. Rather, the primary view of resurrection in the New Testament is the proclamation and affirmation that the powerful life that was in Christ could not in fact be killed by physically killing him; but that quite to the contrary, even when we try the hardest to kill off, or suppress, or negate, or deny the Divine life and power, it is in fact impossible to do that. And even if and when we try to do that, despite our most desperate opposition to Divinity, it keeps coming back. It keeps resurrecting itself by reappearing and reappearing and reappearing as an endlessly new array of endlessly new forms.

There is a wonderful story called ‘The Skylark Song’ that points to at least some of the ways that the renewing power of resurrecting life can come to us. The story says,

“Once upon a time, there lived a colony of frogs in a well with only a faint light filtering down from the top. These frogs were harshly ruled by a boss frog who sent them into the most miserable corners of the well to find grubs, mainly for himself to eat and get rich from.

But from time to time, a skylark would fly down into the well and sing a song. And the song went: (to the tune of “Edelweiss”)

‘Mountains high, clear blue sky, birds fly free in the sunshine,

Room for all, great or small; look for love in your lifetime.’

The boss frog told the others to pay no heed. He said that the skylark was crazy and that all those ideas about an open sky, and love and flying free were just nonsense. But the skylark kept coming and singing, again and again.

Now in the midst of that frog colony was a philosopher-economist frog who heard the skylark and said, “Now wait a minute, my fellow frogs, maybe we should listen to that skylark. He doesn’t sound crazy to me singing about new things we could have if we gather together in his name. We could pool our resources and start sharing more. We could work together for the greater good. We could make our well a lot better, establishing new power systems and ventilation for cleaner air.

There was a lot of resistance to these controversial ideas at first. Eventually, though, as they took hold in more and more frog’s minds, the boss frog was overthrown and the philosopher-economist frog became the new leader. Just as he had said, grubs were provided for all, better lights and air conditioning were built, and their world did seem better.

But despite all that, the skylark kept flying into the well and singing:

‘Mountains high, clear blue sky, birds fly free in the sunshine,

Room for all, great or small; look for love in your lifetime.’

Pretty soon, that philosopher-economist frog started to get annoyed. He said, “Shouldn’t that skylark stop singing now? Can’t he see all our progress with the light and food and air? We’ve done everything we can. That skylark is starting to look pretty foolish, maybe even insane. He may create serious discontent and threaten all we’ve built up”.

So the next time the skylark flew into the well, soldiers were dispatched to capture it. Then they killed it. And after they killed it, they stuffed it, placing it in a beautiful memorial as a reminder of past progress and as a reminder of its own past greatness. The new boss frog congratulated his men, and congratulated himself for handling that problem decisively, once and for all.

But pretty soon, even after the skylark was dead and stuffed, on the third day someone noticed that two or three of the frogs were gathered together whistling the same tune the skylark had always sung when it flew their way. Before long another frog joined in and then another, bursting into song, swelling into a larger chorus, singing the skylark’s words about new freedoms and love. Soon they were adding their own new words to that old, old music. They thought they had lost it forever when the skylark died, but now heard it coming not just from one lone voice, but from within many of them at once, in a way that no one could now take away. When the skylark’s song was killed and stilled, it was only for one brief, silent moment. But almost immediately, and quite unexpectedly, it had come back again, and they knew it was with them always, even to the end of all time. It wasn’t exactly the same old bird. But it was, mysteriously the same old, ancient, eternal song.”

So is it for us. The song of Life is with us always and never needs be lost again. We too can continue to sing the song of a higher hope, even when time or circumstance stills any particular, physical voice. And so it is also that we in this particular church and this particular tradition, can continue to sing and say with millions, even billions, of our compatriots in this tradition, Christian men and women and children around the world, and  across the ages, who join in proclaiming, “He is risen! Christ is risen indeed.”

Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Thanks be to the God who gives us this victory through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

FOLLOWING THE DRUM

4 17 11

LUKE 19:28-40

ANTHONY E. ACHESON, M.DIV.

One of my colleagues in ministry tells a story on herself from her childhood. She wrote, “When I was a young girl, there was a little boy who lived in our neighborhood. He was an only child of well-to-do parents who made sure he received everything his little heart desired. Well, one day what his little heart desired was the exact same thing that my little heart desired. It was a drum that had appeared in the display window at J.C. Penney’s. It was white with blue stars and a red, white, and blue strap that went around your neck to hold the drum in place. There were two sticks for beating out the rhythm, and I was certain I would lead the parade if I just owned it. Ohhh, I loved that drum. At dinner one night, I told my Dad about the drum and he asked how much it cost. When I told him $20, he said in a kind of sad voice, ‘Well, that’s kind of expensive. We’ll see, honey.’

Then the very next day I heard a noise out in the front yard, and there stood that little boy with my drum around his neck. And he was beating out a rat-a-tat-tat and hollering for all of us to come join his parade. My heart was broken. I became determined to put that boy in his place once and for all, so I gathered up all my playmates on C Street and I devised a plan. I said to the other kids, “Let’s all fall in line behind him, but when we got in front of Mrs. Winslow’s house, let’s duck behind the privet hedge in her yard and leave that poiled little brat out in the street by himself.”

Sure enough, before too long, there was our little band leader strutting down the street,

his head thrown back and his knees flying up as he beat out that rat-a-tat-tat on the drum and we all followed in line, strutting as we went. And, then, when we got to the privet hedge. I gave the signal, and, one by one, we left the parade and hid, trying not to giggle too loud. The boy got to the end of the street before he looked back, and when he stopped and turned around, something happened that I wasn’t prepared for at the age of eight. His little arms dropped by his side and in a voice I’d never heard come out of Jeter before, he whimpered, “Little Band, where are you?” And then as if to punish me for the rest of my life, he broke down and started to cry.’

My colleague goes on to relate how she had never in her eight years felt so ashamed of herself. She had premeditated his downfall as the neighborhood kid who always got everything he wanted, but even though her plot succeeded, the end result was not glee, but an empty, remorseful feeling.

There are some parallels in that story to what Jesus must have gone through on Palm Sunday and the day’s following it. He was born in a time and place where a lot of the neighborhood kids around him also wanted to lead their cultural parade. They weren’t small boys , of course; we know them by other names, such as scribes, or Pharisees, or Sadducees, or Chief Priests. Instead of beating a drum, they kept pounding on the metaphorical drum of what they considered to be already established truth. They kept banging on the drum of The Law, and of a very harsh vision of righteous behavior. They kept drumming out that vision into and onto other people so they could keep them in line and maintain religious influence over them.

And then, one day, the day we Christians now call Palm Sunday, this powerful and compelling man from Nazareth leads a parade down from the Mount of Olives and in through the Golden Gate, right into their neighborhood, called Jerusalem, and they heard the noise out in their yard and saw that little rag-tag band of disciples waving their cloaks and palm branches and shouting “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” They appear to have wanted to stomp on his drum and break his sticks and show him who the real leader of the religious spiritual band was supposed to be.

And somewhat like that scenario with that little 8 year old girl, a scenario rose that would result in lots of people following him as the parade began, but by the time he got to the other end of the road - metaphorically speaking, at the end of the week - Jesus, too, would look back and wonder what had happened to his little band of at-first-enthusiastic seekers.

The plot that they hatched of course was much more serious in its ending than the one I began this sermon with. Their plotting carried the weight not just of a few momentary tears, but of a death sentence. They schemed about his future as a band leader, and they used the law and cultural and religious custom to try to trap him. No wonder in another passage we hear about how Jesus stopped outside the city and wept for them. He knew that even the disciples who made up his band would run and hide behind the hedge when he got to the end of the street.

If you want to stop the rat-a-tat of the drum and the drummer, you nail down the hand that beats out the cadence, plan his demise, misrepresent the truth, stomp his drum, break his sticks, and scatter the band members. It’s easy when we read this story to critique the infidelity of Jesus’ own disciples; I’ve done that sometimes in sermons. But I find little comfort in imagining what I, myself, might have done, because I can only concede that unless there had been a major infusion of higher grace and courage, I have little doubt that I would have been tempted as much as anyone else into looking for a place to hide. Perhaps in light of seeing it through that lens, we might have more compassion on Peter, James, and John and those first members of the band, who were a little less visible after the ‘Hosannas’ were silenced.

Today begins holy week for Protestants and Catholics around the world. This is also sometimes called Passion Sunday in the church calendar. In this liturgical week we commemorate a host of significant events. We will follow the story in which Jesus will face death. He will cleanse the temple of money changers; he will continue to teach those who remain able and willing to listen. This is a week in which He will find and stay with the courage to stand for His witness for justice and for a social order based on love and compassion. This is a week when He will explain about authority coming not from human institutions, but from God.  This is a week in which He will stop amidst all the many doings of that week and admire a simple widow who put two pennies into the offering box, because it’s all she could, even though it was a large part of what she had. It’s a week in which He gives several examples of what He called the Kingdom of God, what we might call the realm of God. It’s a week where He breaks bread with His closest friends, offers a cup of forgiveness to His little band, knowing even as he does so that one of them will betray Him and another will deny that he ever knew Him. It’s a week when He will be arrested, tried, beaten, spat upon, convicted, tortured humiliated, and sentenced to death as a common criminal.

His crime? He dared assert his awareness of oneness with God. Many who heard him did not want to do the work of reflecting on who He really was, and what He really taught, and what those teachings meant.

So the question for us on this Palm Sunday, April 17, 2011, is still the same. What did He really teach? And what did His teachings really mean? What does it mean to be a person of faith and trust and confidence? What does it mean to be a person whose focus is on ultimate things and higher things? What does it mean to be a person who organizes his or her life around love and sharing and mutual respect? What did he really teach and what did His teachings really mean? And how will we respond to those of our human kind who have taught us the highest and the best, including this magnificent example of humanity, whom we call Christ? What will we do with the example of this drum major, who went to Jerusalem knowing ahead of time that the initial triumph would be short indeed.  He made that journey not only with courage but also with a deep spiritual awareness that standing for what is good and loving eventually becomes an instrument for helping to usher what is right increasingly into the arc of human history.

All he asks us to do, by implication, is to try and keep on trying to become what we potentially can be. He wants us to keep seeking to become beings of wisdom and of deep love in our relationship with our fellows, and in our larger relationship with humankind, and indeed with the whole biological and planetary system that we are a part of.

By God’s grace may we be people reaching for something higher. In these days of this Holy Week with the faith and the knowledge that if we are seeking it truly and consistently, we will also be people finding at least some meaningful part of it, some of the time.

This we ask and pray in the name and in the spirit of the living Christ. Amen