Walking The 23rd Psalm

A Reflection for the 4^th Sunday of Easter                               The Church of the Holy Trinity, Hertford, NC

April 21, 2024                                                                         Thomas E Wilson, Guest Celebrant/Preacher

Walking the 23^rd Psalm

First of all I need to start with an apology. I got confused and did not show up here last week. It was pure sloth that I did not check the schedule enough. I had gone to the local church's early service in Nags Head and quietly sitting at home when your Senior Warden called me and asked me if I was on the way. I confessed that I was more than an hour and a half away from the church. He pointed out that he had indeed sent me a schedule. I apologized, but the guilt really got going when I found the note in the depths of my computer. So, what I will do now is to go through an exercise of doing as I say and not always what I do. If you want to , in the middle of my reflection, you are forgiven ahead of time if you do the old trick of putting your fist to your mouth as if you were about to cough and expel, the word: “Sinner!” In all of my years as a combination of Professional Saint and Private Sinner, I cannot tell you how many times I wanted to remind people of their failings, but you have a free shot; and you would be right.

Having said that; now what do we do? How do we live together after having exchanged disappointments with each other? Since I am not your full time Rector, you are free to discharge me and not call on me again. However, I am already signed up for five more Sundays until the end of June. Therefore, we may need to find a way to live together during that time. The lessons for today suggest that we come together as fellow sheep in the same flock with the same Shepherd; the Lord is our shepherd. And he walks with us, as we have become his body.

I am reminded of that old Baptist Hymn, with apologies to C. Austin Miles, which I have adapted:

We come to the garden together,
While the dew is still on the roses;
And the voice we hear, falling on our ears,
The Son of God discloses.

Refrain:
And He walks with us, and He talks with us,
And He tells us we are His own,
And the joy we share as we tarry there,
All others can always know.

I came across a quote by Frederick Buechner:

“The earliest reference to the Resurrection is Saint Paul’s, and he makes no mention of an empty tomb at all. But the fact of the matter is that, in a way, it hardly matters how the body of Jesus came to be missing, because in the last analysis, what convinced the people that he had risen from the dead was not the absence of his corpse but his living presence. And so, it has been ever since.”— initially published in The Faces of Jesus. 

The 23^rd Psalm is one of those Psalms which we learn early in our lives. When I was much younger, about 70 years ago, I went to a Vacation Bible School, between the 2^nd and 3^rd grade, where we all were to learn the 23^rd Psalm. I learned to memorize it. Note, that I did not say I understood it; I just committed it to memory so I could parrot it on cue. My prize for this feat was a plastic, green , glow in the dark, figure of Jesus. For the next ten years the plastic, green glow in the dark, figure of Jesus was on a desk next to my bed. It was there every night I went to bed. It was glowing each night when I turned off the light and slipped under my bed covers in the dark, entering indeed the valley of the shadow. While complying with the parental rule that my light was to be off, I would take my crystal radio set that I had put together to listen to the devil's music of Rock and Roll over an ear piece. Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley were not conducive to being in still waters. When it was time to really sleep, I would turn off the set and say the 23^rd Psalm before fully entering into the shadows of death.

There were some nights, especially Sunday night, when the crystal set would be tuned to the late night fire and brimstone preachers, who would remind me what a sinner in the hands of an angry God I was. On those nights I would turn off the set and and, looking at my desk, the last image I had was of the loving shepherd glowing in the dark.

When it came time to go to college, I packed up my stuff , but left the crystal radio set and the Good Shepherd statue, figuring I had to give up childish things. I no longer needed a plastic Jesus, and the new clock radio would wake me up so I would not miss class. But I never was able to get rid of the Psalm I had memorized. I would find times when it would return from the past to give me hope and comfort. When my father was dying, in his truly Valley of the Shadow, I said it over and over again, to myself. I could not really say that I really believed in God at the time, I assumed that God was a myth I could live without, but the prayers never left me.

I got married the day after college graduation and when 2 weeks later, I returned to the family home to be best man at my older brother's wedding, I cleared out all of my stuff, dumping the crystal set and glowing Jesus into my younger brother's pile.

I no longer needed a plastic Jesus. But I never was able to get rid of the Psalm I had memorized. I would find times when it would return from the past to give me hope and comfort. When this Jesus stuff started to make sense in my life as an adult; I was glad that old friend had stayed with me.

Robert Frost said, “A poem begins with a lump in the throat; a home-sickness or a love-sickness.” The 23^rd Psalm is poetry beginning with a longing for home; using words that have different and expansive meanings. I do not know Hebrew, but I steal from the best. For today, I am stealing from “The Shepherd and the Exegetes: Hermeneutics, Through the Lens of Psalm 23.” by Richard A. Davidson, a Seventh Day Adventist at Andrews University in Michigan.

Davidson relates that in the Hebrew, the word “shepherd” is the same word that one would use for “friend”. Jesus then opens up to be more than this big guy with a couple sticks, but a friend who wants the best for me. I had an Australian friend who said whenever he heard the word “shepherd”, he always envisioned a man on horseback with a whip cracking and yelling at the dumb sheep. Over the years, Jesus became for me a friend who loved me and was there to walk with me, wherever I went.

He would be with me as we went into beautiful, pleasant places. The Hebrew word for “Pastures” is also the same world for a “pleasant place of beauty.” The “pleasant places of beauty” that I see the best is when I see that the space between people being filled with love and forgiveness. I have hopes of seeing that whenever I go to church. I don't always find it, especially when people are trying to win rather than love; but I keep looking. Hope is always there for entering a place where the waters are not stirred up for battle, but are calmed, “stilled”, for a time to refresh, to hope, to have my “nephesh”, the Hebrew word for the very being of life, the soul, restored, brought back to full life again.

My friend takes me by the paths, not the narrow dangerous rocky treacherous mountain paths of the wilderness, but the Hebrew word for “paths” usually means wide wagon roads. The shepherd is not there to test me, but to show me the right and wide, well worn paths to take. I have to pay attention of one step at a time that so many have taken before..

The “Valley of the Shadow of death” is the place of deep darkness. It is where my own small light of the crystal radio set is not strong enough. I know that there will be a time when I will die and I trust the light, that my friend is, is on this road. On this road, I have a friend who wants the best for me. It is in those dark places that my friend will feed me the nourishment I need, preparing a table. Not only nourishing me but the healing oil of his love pours over me, not just a touch on the forehead, but a gentle flow of love cascading and claiming me. I used to have red hair and when I was a child, I would stay out on the beach too long and my mother, and later when I did it when I was older, my wife, would apply the healing ointment all over my back. It was a gift of love.

I remember when my daughter was a baby and I would give her a bath, dry her softly and then add oil on her dry skin. The bath was a gift of necessity to remove the dirt of the past; but the oil was a gift of hope for the future.

The Hebrew word for “follow” the paths can also mean “pursue” the paths; it is about commitment to go into new days. I don't think that the 23^rd Psalm was there for us to see that Jesus lived the 23^rd Psalm, but to be for us a path that we might take as regular dog faced people in living our lives. It is not that Jesus keeps reminding us of our sins, but lovingly walks with us, one step at a time, one day at a time.

In the first of John's Epistles we hear the author say today: “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us-- and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?”

To believe in Christ is not something we do in our heads or reciting doctrine, it is something we do with our whole body; one step at a time by getting involved in this complex world. We are not meant to be observers of life, or judges of the paths of others; but to be followers of the living Christ, bringing healing and wholeness into the dark places of the life of our neighbor, and to allow others to minister to us in our own dark places. We are not meant to be mere listeners of the Gospel but to be ministers of Christ's love to this broken world. Salvation is not about getting into the Big Country Club in the sky after we die, but in living fully into each moment of Christ's ministry in us to bring healing into this world.

I usually, having Frost's lump in my throat as I begin writing my reflection, try to write a poem to help me to narrow things down in that reflection , but today I depend on a poem attributed to St. Teresa of Avila, a sixteenth century mystic, nun and reformer. A handwritten copy of this poem/prayer has not been found in her collections of writings but it was attributed to her for the last 5 centuries

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

“In Community, By Our Wounds We Are Healed.”

A Reflection for the 2^nd Sunday of Easter                                  Church of the Holy Trinity, Hertford, N.C.

May 5, 2024                                                                                Thomas E Wilson, Guest Celebrant

Acts 4:32-35                 1 John 1:1-2:2                  John 20:19-31                      Psalm 133

“In Community, By Our Wounds We Are Healed.”

In today's Gospel lesson, the Disciple Thomas, nicknamed “Doubting”, has avoided the first meeting of the community after the Crucifixion. It is a old truth; without participation in community; it is hard to believe anything second hand. Thomas discounts the witness of the other disciples and believes that his misguided friends are just victims of a mass hallucination. After all he, like them, ran for their lives leaving Jesus in the lurch. He comes to the second meeting, filled with shame, but covering those wounds of shame with sneering condemnation of the other disciples. Jesus faces doubting Thomas and Thomas's lack of faith, by showing him Jesus' own wounds. The wounds are shown but without blame of guilt. By Jesus's wounds, Thomas's wounds are healed.

When people disappoint us and we are wounded by their action or inaction; we tend to hold on to our wounds, in the hopes that the person who let us down will suffer. There is something that seems fulfilling in holding a grudge, because holding on to the wound keeps the guilt. Mary Oliver wrote a short poem that could be about this process;

When did it happen?
“It was a long time ago.”

Where did it happen?
“It was far away.”

No, tell. Where did it happen?
“In my heart.”

What is your heart doing now?
“Remembering. Remembering!”

If it is a beautiful, grace filled memory, hold on to it in your heart, but if it is a memory full of hurt, anger, guilt or shame; then we need to ask God's help to move it from your heart to the garbage of vague memory of long ago events which you have asked Divine help in forgiving. Forgiveness is meant to heal the wounds; the wounds that were given to us; especially the wounds that that our guilt wants us to hold onto.

The 1^st Lesson from the book of Acts has the Jesus community face their fears and move into a new sense of community without fear. No one denies that Jesus had wounds, but he refuses to blame the people for his wounds. He refuses to give them wounds of blame; he forgives them before they ask. Nothing gets in the way of love Their wounds are so healed that they are able to create a new community where they share what they have with each other. By Jesus' wounds the community begins to be healed into a new reality. Nothing gets in the way of Love.

They would gather and sometimes sing the psalm of Thanksgiving we said for today:

1 Oh, how good and pleasant it is, *
when brethren live together in unity!

2 It is like fine oil upon the head *
that runs down upon the beard,

3 Upon the beard of Aaron, *
and runs down upon the collar of his robe.

4 It is like the dew of Hermon *
that falls upon the hills of Zion.

5 For there the Lord has ordained the blessing: *
life for evermore.

To live in unity with our neighbor means they we can forgive them and ourselves and let love fill the space between neighbors. There is a poem by late 16^th and early 17^th Century English Divine, George Herbert, called Love about the barriers we put in the way of grace:

LOVE bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,
            Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
    From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
            If I lack’d anything.

‘A guest,’ I answer’d, ‘worthy to be here:’
            Love said, ‘You shall be he.’
‘I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,
            I cannot look on Thee.’
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
            ‘Who made the eyes but I?’

‘Truth, Lord; but I have marr’d them: let my shame
            Go where it doth deserve.’
‘And know you not,’ says Love, ‘Who bore the blame?’
            ‘My dear, then I will serve.’
‘You must sit down,’ says Love, ‘and taste my meat.’
            So I did sit and eat.

Pat's daughter, Gretchen, my step-daughter, sent me a message recorded I think on her daughter-in-law's phone showing her grandson, Alastair, in his bed talking with his father, Gretchen's son, about the tornado that was lashing their area in Oklahoma, The storm was frightening, but Alastair's father was sitting next to his son in bed and telling him that he was not alone. He opened the blinds so Alastair could see the storm and he calmly ministered to him to trust that they could get through this storm. There is no guilt or shame; Alistair was was not berated for his fear, but it was lovingly acknowledged, and from that love he was given strength to face the next storm, after all it is Oklahoma, and have strength to face the next one with cautious optimism and respect for nature. In Loving Community with his father, Alistair's wounds were healed to become memories of strength.

Thirty some years ago, my one year and four days older than I brother, Paul was facing a crisis. He was handsome, voted so by his Senior class in High School. He was athletic, which I was not. He was a chick magnet, which I was not.. After he got out of the Maine Corps he went to college and made much better grades than I did as an Undergraduate. I was so envious of him. He got married, and in his third marriage, they had some beautiful children. He made money in the jobs he had, but he just could not put his life together. He turned to alcohol to fix the problem, but that made it worse. I tried to help but he pushed me aside He had wounds; but he would not allow them to be healed or faced. One night he committed suicide. My mother and his wife pushed me to do his service and his boys stayed with Pat and I for the summer. Both of the boys would later go into treatment for their own addiction. They are now facing their wounds in years of recovery and thriving in life, happily married (Old Uncle Tom did their weddings). They are active in their churches, have happy children. Through their faith, they faced their wounds and with God's help were healed, but as they say, “Just for today.”

My brother's death shook me, and I volunteered to do volunteer Chaplaincy work at a Drug and Alcohol treatment center in the community in which I was a Priest. I continued to do Volunteer work sporadically in the next two parishes, even after I retired until Pat got sick and I was needed more at home. What happens in recovery is that addicts come together to participate in community of fellow addicts, some of whom are still recovering and all who face the fact that while they have done lousy things; yet they are still beloved by a power greater than themselves. Healing begins when the addict realizes that he, or she, has to take responsibility without being shamed into inaction. They have to learn that wounds are real, but so is healing. One step at a time.

One of the things that happened this last week was that I was invited to join a family at a Easter Brunch. I did not know some of the people, but we shared stories about our lives over the Brunch. We shared stories of Thanksgiving about the wounds our ancestors, in Slovenia, Slovakia, Ireland, Scotland, Pasquotank County, Ohio, or wherever, had in coming to this country or we had in coming to this community. There were so many wounds and so much healing. Easter is like that; by their, ours or His, wounds, we are healed.

I am retired now, and I do not need to go to church to put food on the table. I come to church because I have wounds and I come for healing by His, and your, wounds. That is what community is all about.

The true work of this Church of the Holy Trinity is not to prance around doing the “just right” liturgy by shaming sinners, but to bring healing and forgiveness to this community of Hertford. One of the High Points for me in every service is in announcement time, there is a need expressed, a wound in the fabric of this town that needs to be addressed and I saw you respond out of His Wounds: so the community's wounds might be healed; one day at a time, just for today, and on every blessed day. For in Him, every day is blessed.

Today we have communion for all who are invited, we urge each one of us to come as an outward and visible sign that we are tired of dragging around our wounds and we hear the invitation in George Herbert poem “Love”:

‘You must sit down,’ says Love, ‘and taste my meat.’
            So I did sit and eat.

Easter Sinday 2024

 

A Reflection for Easter Sunday 2024                                     Church of the Holy Trinity, Hertford, NC

March 31, 2024                                                                       Thomas E. Wilson, Guest Celebrant

Easter Sunday 2024

In one of her books, Accidental Saints, Lutheran Pastor, and all around rule stretcher, Nadia Boltz Webber writes “In the Jesus business, community is always part of healing. Even though community is never perfect.”

What Jesus does in his ministry is to call people into community for healing. Also in the Resurrection, Jesus does this when he comes back to life: he calls people who were scattered by the crucifixion into a community of resurrection. This is what we do on Easter Sunday, we call the scattered people, scattered for all sorts of reasons, to come and gather together; the living and the dead, the friends and the strangers. It is Sunday morning, the 3^rd day after the Crucifixion. Let us see who is here in this place and community and who was there in Jerusalem in that place and community a couple of thousand years ago and whom Jesus calls by name.

Let me start with right now. One of the people who is here to join this community for today, is my friend Paula Myatt. She was once a senior Warden in the church where I was Rector before I retired. She and I graduated on the same day from UNC many years ago, although we never met until 37 years later. She is here doing an act of mercy, since a group of people at my old church did not feel comfortable with my driving since I had heart trouble. She is here out of an act of love. Thank you, Paula.

One of the people who is not here physically, is my wife, Pat. I don't think any of you have ever met her, but she is with me wherever I go. She died last year, but she is here in the way I treat people. She taught me how to love; to give and to accept. BP, Before Pat, most people had to earn my approval. Thank you Pat for freeing me from that trap.

Usually I write a poem to collect my thought into a coherent whole, but Nancy, a member of a dream group which I agreed to take over after my wife died, sent me this Poem: What to Remember When Waking , by David Whyte an Irish American poet. She sent it to me for me to use when I address the Unitarian - Universalist fellowship next month to talk about how dreams are ways the Powers Greater Than Ourselves speak to us. I saw the poem as a way we have of sharing differences between and within ourselves. I steal from the best. Thank you David for the Poem and Nancy for the thought. These are a couple stanzas about the invitations to join community we send out.

To become human

is to become visible

while carrying

what is hidden

as a gift to others

To remember

the other world

in this world

is to live in your

true inheritance

You are not

a troubled guest

on this earth,

you are not

an accident

amidst other accidents

you were invited

from another and greater

night

than the one

from which

you have just emerged.

One of the people who is not here physically is my Father, Bill Wilson. Raised a Roman Catholic, he grew to observe organized religion with suspicion. He married a lovely Presbyterian classmate at Carolina as he went into the war. They split the difference and baptized the kids as Episcopalians. He taught me not to insult people's intelligence, but to treat them with respect. He died when I was in college, but he is with me every day. He was a Civil Engineer and he loved building roads, and especially, bridges. On vacations, as we were growing up, every time we drove over a bridge, he would explain what the Engineer was trying to do with that bridge over that gorge, or that body of water. The events this week brought him even closer to my mind, He loved the concept of different beams arranged together, respecting their different angles, creating a means of overcoming barriers. It is a metaphor for the church: so many different views shared in dynamic tension creates a common ground. When we lose the dynamic tension; every thing collapses. Thank you, Dad.

Then there is Mary, who is in some of the resurrection stories. She is weeping because she does not see that man she loved. She cannot see his body, she does not even recognize him through her tears. Her heart is breaking, she wanted to do one more act of love to his dead body but his body is gone. She is like so many others who come here filled with their own losses that they cannot even see what is really just in front of them. Except, she is different, she keeps on searching, until that moment when he calls her by name, and then she realizes that her Rabbi, her lover, is here with her. Thank you Mary for being here with us, who choose to love, even when we cannot always see.

Then there is Thomas, the Doubter, who doubts, because there is a limit to his imagination. Yet, he comes anyway. His plan is just to sit there and be with these fools, his friends. He comes, not because he believes, but because he loves. It is an act of love, love which he learned from Jesus, who he thinks is now deader than a doornail. I think he comes to mourn with his friends, as an act of ministry. His plan is to keep quiet and to be there to wrap his arms around his poor deluded friends, to help them through their loss. His heart, but not his imagination, is in the right place. Thank you Thomas, for being here with us. Doubters are always welcome.

Then there is their friend Judas. He loved Jesus; and he betrayed him. His sorrow at the betrayal, caused him to end his life, his shame ended his own life. The old saying is true “We are not punished for our sins as much as we are punished by our sins!” Judas punished himself. But that one who was loved by Jesus is here in his spirit. He had learned a lesson that death does not separate. We learn a lesson from Judas; there is nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing (am I saying it enough times?) , nothing that we can do that can ever separate us from God's love. We can try to lock all the doors; but there is no lock to keep God out. Thank you Judas.

There is another side of the Judas story. In the 1970's, Archeologists uncovered a Coptic document which Carbon dated to 300 AD which purports to be a Coptic Translation from a Greek Gospel in the 2^nd Century of the Gospel of Judas. It was a Gnostic document and was repudiated by the early Christian churches. The document tells the story that Judas was only doing what Jesus asked him to do. The money he was paid was given to the disciples money bag, to jelp the community get through the rough times to come.

There is another story that Madeleine L'Engle tells about Judas in a deep dark slimy pit and after about a thousand years of ministry, he notices a small light. The light gives him hope and he begins to climb, He keeps climbing toward the light, but keeps falling back. He almost reaches the top of the pit but falls again to the bottom, Finally after a couple thousand years, he reaches the top and enters into a door into an upper Room. As he opens the door, he finds Jesus and His disciples in dazzling light. They cry out in Joy, and Jesus says “Judas, my brother, we are so glad you are here. Now we can begin the banquet. We could not start without you.”

We have as our guests here the leaders of the religious establishment who refused to accept the blood money, Judas threw at their feet before he hung himself. The Religious types knew that the money needed to be made holy and so they used it to buy land for a potters field for foreigners to be buried. They took the hate and turned it into a gift of love. The life, death and resurrection of Jesus tells us all things are redeemed, even betrayal, even hatred. Thank you religious leaders for showing mercy on strangers.

Then there is the Roman soldier at the foot of the cross, who realizes that what he did in carrying out the Crucifixion was, as they say, “following orders”. But he understood his own complicity in the legal murder, when he said “This man is innocent” ,or in another Gospel story. “This man is a son of God.”. He, is like the rest of us, who go on living our lives in the middle of slaughter of murders by guns on our American streets, or the actions of soldiers on all sides of conflicts in the middle East, or in wars in Europe, in Africa, in South America and in our hearts. Bring them with you today. Thank you Centurion.

Then there are two others who are here, in spirit, members of the ruling council, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. They did a lot, and could have done more, but there were limits that they placed on themselves. Yes, they could have done more, and they are not there in person at the meeting, but they were there in Jesus's heart. They are like most of us; they do what they can do, but our fear keeps us short of the goal. We are not called to be perfect; there is only one person here who is perfect, and I know I am not one of the perfect ones; I'm just doing what I can, based on what I choose to do. Thank you Joseph and Nicodemus.

One of the people who was there, that night , and is here in our imagination this morning, was Peter. He talked a good game, but he did not win any gold, silver of bronze medals in the faith Olympics. With his denials and his shame, he is like all the rest of us; loved and forgiven before we ask. Thank you Peter.

Then. there are people who just tick me off. I cannot quite put it out of mind and I have to face it. At first I thought it was about the fact that I saw in them the things that I did not like to see. But what it was, that what I was seeing, was the shadow of myself that I did not want to face. Karl Jung called it a shadow, he wrote:

“Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. If an inferiority is conscious, one always has a chance to correct it… But if it is repressed and isolated from consciousness, it never gets corrected and is liable to burst forth suddenly in a moment of unawareness. At all counts, it forms an unconscious snag, thwarting our most well-meant intentions.”

Healing begins when we have to learn to claim our shadows and not hide from them, nor project them on others. So, in the meeting where all the other people, thee is also our shadows. I ask God to help me claim my shadow instead of throwing it on to other people. We have to learn to sing and dance to “Me And My Shadow”. Thank you Karl.

There are others who I bring with me in my imagination and this is my daughter and her husband. I am pretty sure they will not be at an Episcopal Easter service. My grandchildren are home on Spring break from college and I bring them as well in my heart. They are kind and they care for people and love me. I love them, and I bring them in my prayers every time I stop to pray. I am not their judge, I am only some one who loves. Thank you Shanon, Steve, Nick and Luke.

Maybe, some of you have children, or neighbors, who you love and who have not shown up here in person. That is not your problem; your job is to love them and bring them in your heart to the throne of Grace. There may be empty pews here, but there should not be empty hearts. Bring them here in the warmth of your hearts. Our hearts are what we bring! Thank you all for opening your hearts.

May the resurrected Lord open our hearts today, so we may live in the light of the resurrection love in each one of us. We end as we began: “In the Jesus business, community is always part of healing. Even though community is never perfect.” Thank you for not waiting until you were perfect.

"Sir, We Wish To See Jesus."

A Reflection/Poem for 5^th Sunday in Lent                       Church of the Holy Trinity, Hertford, NC

March 17, 2024                                                                Thomas E Wilson , Guest Celebrant

Jeremiah 31:31-34                      Hebrews 5:5-10                               John 12:20-33

                                                “Sir, We Wish To See Jesus.”

In the Gospel lesson for today, there is a group of Greeks who come to see Jesus. There had been Greeks in the Holy Land at least since the 4^th Century BC when Alexander the Great came through and ravaged and conquered the land on his way to conquer Persia and beyond, he hoped, to fabled India. When Alexander died, his Empire was too big to govern, so four of his Generals decided to split up his Empire. Cassander took the Homeland of Macedonia and the Greek Peninsula. Ptolemy took the riches of Egypt. Lysimachus took Thrace, and Seleucus took Asia Minor. It would be nice to say “and then peace reigned;” but it didn't. They and their descendants fought and squabbled for the next several centuries, until they were all conquered by the Roman Empire.

Judah was able to throw off the Seleucid Rule in 141 BC when the Maccabees rose up and set up a Jewish State, consolidating the Temple area and, all in all, ruling badly, until the Romans annexed the nation into the Roman Empire in 65 BC. Romans might have ruled, but the Greek language and Greek culture had a strong influence. Even the Hebrew name of “Joshua” was in most cases given the Greek translation of “Jesus”. Greeks and Jews lived in the same communities and the Hebrew Testament was translated into Greek in the Septuagint .

In John's Gospel, John does not like Jews all that much; they are the bad guys. Antisemitism just drips off his quill. John may have been a Jew, but he may have been filled with self racial hate. The Greek group that came to see Jesus in the Gospel story were not Greek speaking Jews, but Greeks living in Palestine who wish to see Jesus. Jesus understood that his message was meant to go to the Jews forming this reform movement within Judaism. These Greeks however, may have seen the Jesus movement as separate from Judaism. Jesus understood that there would be a concerted effort to crust his movement by the Conservative Members of the Temple Crowd and the Pharisees- AND the Romans who had enough headaches of their own keeping the Province subdued and taxes collected.

Jesus can see the handwriting on the wall that his ministry will be coming to a violent end if he goes to Jerusalem. And, yet, this is where he feels he is called to go – called to go; even to his death. In reflection, he says; “Now is my soul troubled.” He understands that he will be, what he calls the grain of wheat that will fall into the earth and die, and out of which an abundant harvest will grow.

This is the 5^th Sunday of Lent and one of the themes of Lent has been how much of each one of us must die, be giving up, in order that we grow into who we are called to be as we prepare for Easter and the Cross. There cannot be a resurrection without a taste of death.

Paul in his letter to the Corinthians talks about this dying in which to grow up in faith, when He wrote, “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became an adult man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.”

Years ago, when I worked for a living as a Rector of a church, I would be called on to do weddings, and I would insist of doing extensive pre-marital counseling with couples who wanted to be married. Most couples did not want to go through counseling, since they had the hots for each other, and what else matters! But their parents had insisted they be married in a church. and this old fossil would probably quote the Bible a lot to them. I remembered what it was like as an undergraduate having the hots for someone and getting bored out of my mind meeting with her childhood pastor. And that marriage ended up in a divorce. And I did not want that to happen to any of my parishioners. So I gave the couples a bunch of assignments. One of which was to have a fight. They would usually say something like: “But we love each other! We never fight!”” The reality is that hots and love are not the same thing.

As the weeks went on, there would be a time when they would say, “You told us to fight; but this was not a fight. BUT when he said ...” ' and they would share what he or she said . . . “and we got into a discussion that took us some time to get over it.”

So now, we would take a look at the “discussion”, and it usually had to do with what needed to change in the relationship for it to grow; something would need to fall into the ground, in order to be transformed, a realignment to develop from child to adult, from daughter to wife, from son to husband. The old adage is true, “You cannot grow unless you work to develop a future and present, but also die to the past. Or, as Cornel West wrote: There is a price to pay for speaking the truth, but a bigger price to pay for living a lie.”

In my own family, I had to go through that change when My daughter got really interested in a young man. I had to give up my baby and become the Father of the Bride, AND the “Father In Law” to her husband. I could not be their Counselor, so I asked a Priest in the state in which they were both Grad students to do the task. She insisted I do the service, and I never felt so inadequate.

I talked with her on the phone when she called on Thursday as I was writing this reflection, and tomorrow will be her Birthday, this middle aged woman, and part of her is still my baby. Yet, when my wife, her stepmother, died 10 months ago, she came to take care of the old man and to mourn a woman she loved. My baby has babies, and she told me about Luke who is finishing up college and how she attended his presentation of his Senior Project hea developed in the music program, and how their Youngest son, Nick, is back home for Spring break from his first year of college. Then I see a picture of my step-daughter's son and his wife with their son Alistair starting to play. Babies and Babies.

I remember when I told my mother that we were expecting a child; her first response was; “I am too young to be a grandmother!” We all are, but sometimes, grandparents we become.

My daughter was a teenager when I was made a Priest and I have had to change over the years; things had to die so that new life might be reborn with us. I have moved from having a calling to deepening my faith. I am not the same person I was. Parts of me had to die and fall into the ground so a deeper man, Priest, disciple, father and lover could grow.

It has not always gone the way I wanted it to go, but I had to learn how to let the grain die, in order to have a new harvest. Priests, and Parishioners, who do not grow daily in their faith, never grow deeper, having Spirits who went on vacation years ago, dying in a far off country of their mind, but still show up from time to time at church gatherings, will have funerals which have yet to be planned.

When I was a Parish Rector and approached the mandatory retirement age, I was afraid I would stop growing spiritually. But today is a new day and I find new ways to die, and to do blessings to live, in a resurrected life of each new day. As John Newton, who wrote Amazing Grace wrote: “ I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be, I am not what I Hope to be in another life, but still; I am not what I once used to be, and by the grace of God. I am what I am.”

So, it is true about being a faithful Christian. It is a matter of growing into a new future of commitment, deeper in faith, and dying to the past; every day!

This church is looking for a new Rector; we cannot live in the past, You, and I, need to keep growing while something of the old familiar needs to keep dying. Not living in the past, we must move into a new future when we can all say: “Sir, we wish to see Jesus” and hear that Jesus wishes to see you, as you, and even me, grow deeper.

“Sir, We Wish To See Jesus.”

It has been said so many times,

“Sir ,we wish to see Jesus.”

The asking is not facetious,

By asking while offering dimes.

So many years ago, a search goes;

Is today the day, or yet another?

They don't want to be a bother,

But it has to more than a pose,

Put on to pass the old Sunday time

By saying prayers, singing Psalms,

To talks that keep going on too long,

Before the games come on airtime.

Can we see Jesus, in us with neighbor

Holding them in love as our Holy Labor.

Snakes And Crosses: Symbols To Remember

A Reflection and Poem for 4^th Sunday In Lent                    Church of the Holy Trinity, Hertford, NC

March 10, 2024                                                                  Thomas E Wilson, Guest Celebrant/Preacher

Snakes And Crosses: Symbols To Remember

In today's lessons we have symbols all over the place. In the Collect for today, there is the symbol of bread. Bread is a natural part of having the strength to live a daily life, but it is seen as a symbol. We are not interested if the bread is white, or rye, or whole wheat, or a taco shell, or a bagel. We are not interested in its physical description but in its symbolic meaning of having what you need each day.

The Hebrew Testament and Gospel refer to a snake and we are not interested if it is a Cobra, Garter or Rattler, but in its symbolic meaning. The Gospel speaks of a Cross and we are not interested in if it is wood, or metal or plastic but in its symbolic meaning.

Carl G. Jung in his book “Man And His Symbols” writes”:

Every concept in our conscious mind, in short, has its own psychic associations. While such associations may vary in intensity . . . , they are capable of changing the "normal" character of that concept. It may even become something quite different as it drifts below the level of consciousness."

The snakes in the Hebrew Testament reading are physical threats capable of killing people so they are sighs of danger; but they are symbolic figures in that they can shed their skin and leave the past behind The snake is put on a pole to remind people they can leave the past behind if you face up to it; have the courage to repent and begin a new life.

The cross in the Gospel is a sign of leaving the past behind , but also the cross consists of two things that have nothing to do with each other, the vertical and horizontal, and they are locked together. In the same way Jesus is both Divine and human, a reconciliation of the opposites. There is death and life and as the Gospels and Epistles tell us, there is a reconciliation of these opposites. The Cross as symbol tells each one of us that there is no end to God's love in every moment of every day, redeeming all things in heaven and earth.

On the other side, the Cross is also a symbol of “business as usual “ by governmental and religious institutions. Jesus was a trouble maker who challenged the ruling authorities. These institution wanted “Peace, Law and Order”. Heck, we all want peace, law and order! Their and our jails are filled with people who disturbed the peace and defied the order imposed from the ruling authorities.

Barbara Brown Taylor wrote: “Jesus was not killed by atheism and anarchy. He was brought down by law and order allied with religion – which is always a deadly mix. Beware those who claim to know the mind of God and are prepared to use force, if necessary, to make others conform. Beware those who cannot tell God’s will – from their own.”

On July 23, 1846, Henry David Thoreau left his Walden Pond cabin to visit some friends. The local constable arrested him for not paying his poll tax. Thoreau said that he refused to pay into a system that allowed slavery of human beings. Spending the night in jail, his friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson stopped by to visit him. “What are you doing in there Henry?” asked Emerson. Thoreau relied; “What are you doing out there Waldo?”

Thoreau spent one night in jail, and an unknown person paid his fine. Thoreau responded with writing a book about the need for Civil Disobedience when a government chose to go along instead of standing for the dignity of every human being.

The Episcopal Church struggled with slavery. It did not split like the Presbyterian, the Methodist, the Unitarian, Baptists over slavery per se. They used the excuse that since the South had split from the North there were now 2 nations. That way they could avoid the fact that Religious institutions are places to put one's trust, to face deeper reality. As one report from the National Church, published four years ago noted:

At the time, (1856) an intense national debate raged over whether to admit Kansas as a free or slave state, with pro- and anti-slavery militias engaging in violence and massacres. When it met that year, the General Convention refused to comment on the violence in Kansas, stating that the church should have “nothing to do [with] party politics, with sectional disputes, with earthly distinctions, with the wealth, the splendor, and the ambition of the world.” In 1861, as the nation was moving toward Civil War, Presiding Bishop John Henry Hopkins, who was bishop of Vermont (one of the first states to put in place provisions to end slavery), published an extended defense of slavery. While one might be morally opposed to it, Hopkins argued, slavery was nonetheless present in Scripture and was legal.

I have worked for institutions; governmental, religious and educational, ever since I graduated from college in 1968. I have taken their pay but I have learned not to put my trust in them. I put my trust in this symbol which lives deep in my heart; this person we call Jesus.

I meet him when I go deep inside myself. I have to go deeper than the surface figure in the Bible. I go deeper than the manufactured prayers. I have to go deeper than the Creeds. I have to enter into the silence and listen to the to my heart in conversation with the Holy. It does not produces crystal answers, but it is the space where deep love lives. As Jung suggests, drifting just under the lever of consciousness. It is the space where we are called to be still with the Divine.

There are times when I get no answers, in which case, I have to trust being powerless in the presence of the power greater than myself. There will be times when I will make wrong decisions, but I know that forgiveness is abundant. Maybe not forgiveness by people, but it is the quiet trusting love in the deep dark.

My wife died at the end of June last year and I miss her desperately, to talk to, to hold, to laugh with, to cry with, but there are moments in the deep dark that I know she is with me. There are no fluffy clouds, no angels with Harps, no big book or angel choirs; just the awareness that nothing ever separates us from love.

Snakes And Crosses: Symbols To Remember

Then, as I woke up, I realized I was alone,

and would be alone now and from now on,

for there was no magic cure to rely upon;

as when into this new world I was thrown.

Or would I be like the serpent shedding,

giving up, that latest covering of skin,

which clothed me, so many years of spin

on this earth which I'm afraid of forgetting?

I wanted something to hold on to remember,.

Like the smiling picture over the obituary,

Placed in the paper to recall her so merry,

To call us to mind, so we'd never forget her.

The wilderness folk put the snake on a pole,

as Jesus folk hold a cross, to comfort a soul.

Humming When Words Are Forgotten

Reflection on Jo Ann Morris                                     The Church of the Holy Trinity, Hertford, NC

March 9, 2024                                                          Thomas E Wilson, Celebrant

Humming When Words Are Forgotten

I want to thank you all for being here to remember Jo Ann and to witness to a life well lived. You are witnesses as she was a witness. The Greek word for Witness is μάρτυρας, (martyras), and I know that many of you would feel real uncomfortable being labeled as Martyrs, when I called you witnesses. After all it was not that great a sacrifice for you to come here this morning and having to endure an Episcopal service. It will be in the 16^th and 17^th centuries that translators into English will start to translate μάρτυρας, as two different ways, “martyr” as those whose blood was shed and “witness” those who saw what was happening and were able to testify about what they saw. We are here to witness, to testify with our presence.

I have a third definition about people who saw and their lives were changed. Maya Angelou in her book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings , relates that to really love someone is to know the song their heart sings and to hum it back to them on the days they forget how it goes. I like the idea of being a witness is one who can hum the song in our hearts when we are in danger of forgetting the tune and the words.

When I talked with people who knew JoAnn, it did not take long after they shared memories about what she did, evolved to how their lives were affected by being connected to this woman. These are people who knew her as a neighbor to this good neighbor. She gave herself in jobs which tried the patience of many so-called Saints. She was able to hum the song about Market Street, so residents could remember the words.

One of her jobs which she worked at for 20 years was working with Juveniles who needed support and guidance. She did it as a witness. Curtis Almquist of the Society of Saint John the Evangelist writes of witness:

There is a job that needs to be done and somedays the job is so frustrating that you want to quit- the hell with it - but it needs to be done. You die to that thought for a moment or an hour or a day, but you die to it because that is what your faith tells you to do.

Around that same time she was working with Juveniles, I was down in New Hanover County doing the same kind of work, working for two years with Juveniles who needed support and guidance, after I worked three years working with school dropouts. Five years was as much time as it took and I realized I needed to know more and went to Grad School for a Masters In Social Work Degree.

You see I have this Y Chromosome which means that my push is to find solutions. She worked for 20 years, I think it was because she saw it as a calling to witness. To be a witness to not just to what was done to cause the intervention in their lives, but to be a witness to what could be done if they were shown love and reality. From what I hear about her; she did her work out of love. I did my work out of wanting to be a “Professional”. She did her witness of love as a lay person. I later went to seminary to be a Priest so I could find definitions of, and preach about, love. She did not have to leave town,

She knew how to love. She loved her community and she emptied herself out for it. One of the people I talked to said she was known as the “Queen of Market Street”, out of her love of witness for the neighborhood. Beyond her neighborhood, she served on the Hertford Town Council for the whole town as a witness of the deeper soul of this town. She was a witness for the whole state on the North Carolina Martin Luther King Jr. Commission, of the hope of being released from the dead past where people were afraid to across race lines. She loved. I am reminded of, not the context but some words, in Othello's last speech where he admits he “Loved not wisely but too well”.

If you want to continue her witness to love in this community, love each other, so you can know the song that in the heart of others and hum it to them when they need it.

A Reflection and Poem for 3^rd Sunday of Lent                      Holy Trinity Church, Hertford, NC

Thomas E Wilson, Guest Celebrant                                       March 3, 2024

Exodus 20:1-17           1 Corinthians 1:18-25             John 2:13-22                  Psalm 19

Priests Going Through The Motions In the Temple

Okay. Let me begin by telling you that I am a Priest, and while you are not, this reflection has a lot of Priest stuff in it . But, and this is an important “BUT”: you are looking for a Priest; and he or she is going to need your help to be a minister with you. Bishops make Priests to go through the Motions around Altars and Churches, but it is congregations who make ministers to enter community with.

The last words of the Psalm for today is always in my heart as I write or give a sermon “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, *O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.” May it be so with the Priest God leads you to.

In the Epistle Lesson for today Paul is writing to to the very conflicted and egotistical church in Corinth and they are so full of themselves. Paul tells them: “Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?”

Paul writes them to tell them that they received the Wisdom of God when he shared it with them, but they have lost their way. He is writing to remind them of the central truth they have forgotten. Paul will remind them that they are called to be lovers; lovers of God and each other and their neighbors. In the 13^th Chapter of 1st Corinthians, which you can look it up for yourself, or maybe attend a wedding, or go to a funeral or on the last Sunday of January next year when it is on the schedule, he will spell out what he means by love. Basically what he says is Love can be claimed in the space between you and every other person in the world, and in every part of God's world and in every moment of your life. and beyond.

In the Exodus passage, the people are on their way, escaping from Egypt, but they are in the Wilderness. They long for an outward sign that God is really with them as they move, oh so slowly, to the Promised land. They stop at the Mountain and there Moses leaves them and goes up on the Mountain to talk with God. Out of love, God gives them 10 Words of direction on how to live together. These Ten Words, are expanded in the text of the story. However, Moses and God's chat takes longer than the people had expected and they grow restless. They want a God they can see and touch, so Arron, as their Priest, takes up a collection of Gold, which he melts down and makes a Golden Calf to stand in for the God who is out there somewhere. The people have a good old-fashioned Orgy, ah the good old days! However, Moses shows up at the party and breaks the tablet with the ten words on it and orders a slaughter of the ring leaders. Then, he hikes up the Mountain again, where God gives him a replacement with the same 10 words of what God thinks is the basis of a relationship with God. Aaron is still their Priest, and no one could erase the mistakes he made, but he was given a clearer Job Description and he has a life time appointment. Holding grudges is not an option, as spiritual retirement from a community of faith is not an option.

Aaron and his crew, and those who follow them in the centuries that follow, create an elaborate outline of a dance of what worship looks like led by the Priests. The Priests know that they need a Holy Place for the Holy Dance of community worship, and they guide the people in the building of a Temple. There is a list of what and how things are done so the Golden Calf episode will not be repeated. The Temple will have a rough history and it is destroyed by enemies. But with the returning faith of the exiles, a Temple is rebuild and the old rules are still in effect; dancing day in and day out, year in and year out.

Then the Priests start to say, “You know, this Temple business is a Sacred Business with a capital B. So, why not make it a cash cow so we don't have to worry about upkeep!” They do not mention the Golden Calf experience, but their Cash Cow is a close cousin. But, heck, those Priests do put on a good show in their worship business; it was impressive! It is a very human desire to be impressive, but fatal for a Priest. They passed on the choreography of the Sacred Dance of Worship, but didn't teach them the way to listen deeply to God's music underneath the dance. They ended up just going through the motions.

Centuries later, Jesus comes on the scene, and, he, like Moses, sees a Golden Calf underneath the Cash Cow business as usual in the Temple's main function of separating the people from their Gold. The money of the people needs to be traded into Temple coins to buy what they need for the experience of “First Class” Worship in the Sacred Dance. Jesus notices the Temple is impressive, BUT the mark ups and the swindles that are practiced in the name of worship is more than he can tolerate. So, he acts like Moses, and wrecks the place as much as one man can do. The religious establishment then decides that this Jesus is bad for business as usual and start working for his destruction. They start working hand in glove with the Roman Authorities whose only Dance they knew was Military Marches of Lock Step.

When I went to seminary , they taught me lots of Theological, Pastoral, Educational and Biblical stuff. They taught me the outline of the sacred dance of worship, or at least go through the motions. They gave me a degree; Master Of Divinity, talk about an Oxymoron - to be a Master in something which is beyond our understanding. But, I wanted to be impressive. The Good side was that I wanted to give my best, but the Dark Side was my desire to BE seen and admired as the best show in town. My Clergy Performance was solid Gold, but My performance did not live up to my life, and my marriage ended in divorce. The divorce came about for many reasons, but high in the top ten was my ego need to be seen as impressive. If your goal is to be the Fred Astaire of the Clergy Dancers; you really need to take the time to really listen to the deeper music.

Pat saw me for who I was, when she first met me as the newly minted Seminary Graduate,and found my ego drive distasteful. However, years later, it was hard to keep up my facade of ego, I realized that Paul was writing to the Corinthians, AND to me, when he wrote:“Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” Pat was there to help me pick up the pieces and helped make a Priest who could love.

Part of who I am is like Aaron, who created a Golden Calf and saw it destroyed. There are only a few remnants of of that Calf showing up from time to time, and only on those days that end in the letter “y”.

I am a work in progress. Indeed, all of us are works in progress. If Holy Trinity calls a new Seminary graduate; remind him or her that they are a work in progress and they were invited to worship with you, and not for you. Invite them to be, not a ruler held in awe, but a member of a community, flawed as everyone is, to help each other out. Dance with him or her to God's deeper music. Jesus did not rise from the dead in order to form official splendid worship centers, but to raise us all up to be a community of faith who forgive easily.

On one hand, I am like the 19^th Century German Poet Heinrich Heine, who on his deathbed was asked if he wanted to beg God's forgiveness. He replied with an arrogance that poets know: “God forgives; that's his job!” On the other hand, Jesuit writer, Richard Rohr wrote; "Every time God forgives us, God is saying that God's own rules do not matter as much as the relationship that God wants to create with us."

Priest Going Through The Motions In the Temple

Remember what it was like, learning how to dance?

Counting out the numbers; one, two, three, and one!

Over and over again, not paying attention. No fun,

Or joy allowed, only a scared stiff pompous prance.

I dare not to make a mistake or even to apologize,

To my partners, or their feet, which I stepping upon.

Only that tedium of covering up the ground I'm on,

While I holding on to fantasies of wining that prize.

OH, that wonderful adulation which I do so crave,

When my partner has her eyes opened to now gush,

And tell me, she would enjoy when our lips brush,

Which, if I try hard enough: I'll receive in my grave.

Resting at last, in the applause of the almighty,

Trading my old soiled robe for a heavenly nightie.