Thursday, October 30, 2014

Singing With All of the All Saints



A Reflection for All Saints’ Sunday              All Saints’ Episcopal Church, Southern Shores, NC November 2, 2014                                                Thomas E. Wilson, Rector
This is All Saints’ Sunday – so, “Welcome Fellow Saints!” I can tell that some of you are wondering who I am talking to. I am talking to every one of you in this room. Right now I can sense some eye rolls as you are thinking, “He obviously doesn't know us that well or he would not have confused us all with saints.” No, I am talking to all of us in this room or who are reading this sermon online. We are saints.

Before I saw the movie Gone Girl, I read the book, and one of the characters had a job writing those quizzes in magazines.  You know the ones - where you answer a bunch of multiple choice questions and, when you add up your answers, and the score will rank you on things like “Are you sexy enough?” or “How good a friend are you?” or “How compatible is your fiancĂ© with you?” or some other such question. I thought I could make up a series of questions about “Are you a Saint?” I figured that I could ask you all to stand up and then sit down when you missed a question. I would then hand out Gold Stars to all those who passed the test and offer remedial classes for those who had to sit down early. I could do that on my last Sunday here because - believe me - if I did it, it would indeed be my last Sunday here. However, I found that I am a little late coming up with the questions – actually, more than a little late, for Matthew remembered Jesus going through such a list in the Sermon on the Mountain, the Gospel lesson for today.
Let’s go through these descriptions of what a person who would be called a “Saint”  would be: in short, someone who is blessed. 

“Blessed are those who are poor in spirit”. Eugene Peterson translates “poor in spirit” as “when you are at the end of your rope”. Anybody here have an idea of what it means to be at the end of your rope? I remember what that was like, and I don't remember that I felt particularly blessed at the time. I had just moved to Seminary and ended up in the hospital for an operation. I was without medical insurance since I had quit my job at the college at the end of the spring semester, so I was going to be broke, behind in my schoolwork, and I felt foolish for being on the edge of total failure in the name of religion. It is only when I looked back on it that I was able to see that that was one of those crossroads which helped to define my life. Since I was no longer in control, I had had to open myself to a future where I needed not religion but God.

San Shoemaker (1893-1963)
I am reminded of the First Step of the 12 Step Program in which addicts have to admit to themselves that their lives have become unmanageable. The Rev. Sam Shoemaker, the Rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in New York City and one of the leaders of the Oxford Movement out of which AA grew, summarized the beginning of one's life in Christ.  He said it occurs when the person who has been struggling with and losing to sin finally says “God manage me; I can't manage myself.”
“Blessed are those who mourn” means to me that I have to be aware that I lost something important. It could be that I lost people, or love, or opportunities, or self-esteem; whatever was lost brought emptiness, an emptiness that I came to be aware only God can fill.

“Blessed are the meek” means to me that I do not have the strength to fix whatever I have lost and I have to turn to a power greater than myself to help me get through,

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness” means to me not that I do all sorts of “right” things, but that I need to be in a “right” relationship with God. I use as my text the 60’s and 70’s vocal duo of Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield who called themselves the “Righteous Brothers”. The name meant not that they were good people, but that they had a right relationship with the music so that together they sang out of their souls rather than just hitting the right notes. As I wrote this sermon I played again “You Lost that Loving Feeling” and “Unchained Melody”, and I remembered why they were considered righteous. I think it means to freely sing God's song out of our souls with God and another person and not worry about the notes.

"Blessed are the merciful” means to me the need to set aside my judgmental side. When I was a college instructor, it was a regular happening that someone would come to me just before the final paper was due and ask for more time because their aunt, grandmother, dog, or cat had died, or they had been dumped by their boyfriend or some such trauma. I did not always believe them or give mercy, but I did usually give them an incomplete which would change to an “F” at the beginning of the next semester. It was not mercy, it was just easier. Mercy was what I received in Seminary as the financial aid people worked overtime for me to get more scholarships and aid, while students gave me their notes for the first week of classes that I missed. Mercy was what I did for myself as I forgave myself for falling short of being in control.

"Blessed are the pure in heart” brings to mind a reflection by Clarence Jordan, a farmer, a Southern Baptist Preacher, Greek New Testament Scholar writing the Cotton Patch Gospels, and the founder in 1942 of Koinonia Farms in Southwest Georgia to work on economic justice and racial reconciliation.  Now when [people] attempt to live a double life spiritually, that is, to appear pure on the outside but are not pure in the heart, they are anything but blessed. Their conflicting loyalties make them wretched, confused, tense. And having to keep their eyes on two masters at once makes them cross-eyed, and their vision is so blurred that neither image is clear.”

"Blessed are the peacemakers” means to me that, as children of God, everyone is related to us and “in our family”. Peace begins in our hearts when we see all the divisions between us and others as only apparent and not real. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in the Cost of Discipleship, “The followers of Jesus have been called to peace. When he called them they found their peace, for he is their peace. But now they are told that they must not only have peace but make it. And to that end they renounce all violence and tumult.”

"Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake” means to me that, while we live in a world in which the message of Jesus is either ignored or domesticated into a series of creeds about Jesus or viewed as a “get out of hell free” card, being a follower is not “business as usual”. We are to follow Jesus and proclaim a deeper truth in our lives or, as the Baptismal covenant says, “loving your neighbor as yourself” and “strive for justice and peace and respect the dignity of every human being.”
If this had been a quiz, I would barely have gotten a passing score. A friend of mine and former member of this church, Albert Killingsworth, explained why he was attending a Bible Study class. “I am just cramming for the finals.” We are all sinners in the process of being saints. “Saints” does not mean someone who is especially good; there is no one – no, not one - who is especially good. We are all schmucks who need something greater than ourselves.


This is poem I wrote for this reflection – I will not read it out loud at the service but I find it helpful for my own understanding on what I was thinking about when I wrote the sermon.

Singing With All of the All Saints

Singing with all of the All Saints,
We schmucks filled with empty longing,
Not for religion but for the loving God,
Knowing our own strength is lacking.

We, schmucks filled with empty longing,
On days we cannot manage ourselves,
Knowing our own strength is lacking.
But unearned mercy pours over us

On days we cannot manage ourselves.
Our divisions more apparent than real 
With unearned mercy pouring over us
Cramming for finals by singing God's song.

Our divisions more apparent than real 
In our religions, but not for loving God.
Cramming for finals by singing God's song
Singing with all of the All Saints

Thursday, October 16, 2014

The Old Man and Joshua



A Reflection for XIX Pentecost (Proper 24)   All Saints’ Episcopal Church, Southern Shores, NC October 19, 2014                                                 Thomas E. Wilson, Rector
Exodus 33:12-23               Psalm 99              1 Thessalonians 1:1-10                   Matthew 22:15-22
The Old Man and Joshua
The Old Man sat down on a boulder for he was tired. The Young Man, Joshua, came up to him with a look of concern.
Joshua said:     Moses, what is the matter?

Moses:             I am not able to keep up anymore. My body is giving out on me and I can feel the end of my days coming.

Joshua:            Stop that! You are not too old - and we can help you and carry you until we reach the Promised Land.

Moses:             No, I have a destiny with death and I am not going to run away from it. I spent so many years of my life running away from things. When I was a young man, I killed an Egyptian overseer and buried his body as a way of running away from my responsibility. Nothing ever stays hidden and when that body was found, I tried to keep as quiet as possible. But the truth came out and I ran away to the land of Midian. However, no matter how far away I ran, I could never run faster than the God who was living inside me.

Joshua:            Like the Song goes, “Where can I go from your Spirit; where can I flee from your presence?”

Moses:             That is the one.

Joshua:            So God does that with you too?

Moses:             It is part of being human; we are all God-haunted. For years in Midian I tried to ignore this God inside my very self, my soul, and I did all the things I needed to do to succeed. I defined myself by what I did for a living and the place in which I lived. But the deeper part of me belonged to Her, and She was like a pest who would not take the hint, every place I looked I kept seeing Her. She finally revealed herself to me in the burning bush in such a way that I could no longer ignore Her.  She entered into my daily life and I could no longer run away. We have been so intimate.  Every time I breathe, Her spirit enters into my body and fills me with Her presence. God knows these places. 

Joshua:            Do you know all of God’s places?

Moses:             No I don’t. She is to me like I am to Zipporah, my wife. She knows me as well as any human can, and yet there are places inside my heart, places of such despair and fury, that she would never understand. There are times of such joy that I cannot find the words to share them with her. I love her as much as I can love any human, but there is part of me that is a mystery to her. I love God, but there is so much of God that is way beyond my understanding. I once asked God to show Herself to me, and all I could get were glimpses. 

Joshua:            I feel the same way. Everything I say about God is so inadequate. He is way beyond my understanding. It is funny, you refer to God as “She” and I say “He”, but they are the same. God comes in so many disguises.

Moses:             I don’t think they are disguises as much as they are inadequacies of our imagination and language. God is always the same, but when God deals with us and lives within us, He She is not a cookie cutter, chronic undifferentiated deity.  We see different facets of the same diamond, and the more we experience, the more we see. Yet despite all of our talk, we come to the awareness that every time we attempt to define and say the phrase “God is”, as if God has left the room, then we miss the point.

Joshua:            So the greatest blasphemy is to speak of God in the third person instead of the second person “You”; to speak of God instead of to God.

 Moses:            That is our first attempt to run away from God, when we keep God as an intellectual proposition, a theoretical abstraction. When asked if he believed in God, someone replied, “I do not believe. I know.”

Joshua:            But what about that other line from that song you quoted earlier, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is too high I cannot attain to it.”

Moses:             Knowing God is not about what is in my head but about the intimacy of knowing within the depth of my being. This is the basic truth of my life - that I am God’s beloved and chosen by God, not by word alone but by power and God’s Holy Spirit which claims me to live into whose image I was created to be. Back to the song: “I am wondrously and marvelously made.”

Joshua:            If I could live life like that were true every moment of my life…  But I keep beating myself up for things that I have done or not done. I look at myself and say things like “I hate myself!”

Moses:             If you look at yourself and say those things about yourself, then you will say and think those things about others. The God who dwells within never says that He She hates us, but that we are God’s beloved. If we are in the image of God, the God that we have inside us is the human we present to the world. In order to change ourselves, we have to listen to the God who in love “created my inner most parts and knit me together in my mother’s womb” as that same song goes.

Joshua:            You seem stuck on that song?

Moses:             I am an Old Man and hold on to things. But it is time for me to let everything go. I will not see the Promised Land, but I will enter into the fullness of God soon, as, I pray, we all will. But as for you, still on your journey . 
. .
Joshua:            Let me stop you there, and as I have said before and I’ll say again, I am not going back to slavery in Egypt.

Moses:             After I am dead and you enter the promised land, say to the people who will want to go back to the old ways something like, “If you decide that it’s a bad thing to worship the LORD, then choose a god you’d rather serve—and do it today. Choose one of the gods your ancestors worshiped from the country beyond The River, or one of the gods of the Amorites, on whose land you’re now living. As for me and my family, we’ll serve the LORD.”

Joshua:            “I’ll write that down.”



The Old Man and Joshua (Poem)
Feeling the end of my days,
Spending years running away
But She always gets there first.
We humans are so God-haunted

Spending years running away.
Every time I breathe Her spirit enters,
We humans are so God-haunted.
I ask Her to show Herself to me.

Every time I breathe, Her spirit enters
But all I could get were glimpses.
I ask Her to show Herself to me,
She in third person is blasphemy

All I could get were glimpses
As She always gets there first.
She in third person is blasphemy
As I feel the end of my story.




Saturday, October 11, 2014

The Old Man and the River of Complaints September 21


Parson Tom’s Tomes
This edition of October's Tomes is using the lesson from the Sunday that I was gone in September in the Moses Cycle where the Hebrew children are complaining about not having meat and bread to eat when they have left Egypt (Exodus 16:2-15). This is a stewardship story which I call; “The Old Man and the River of Complaints”

The Old Man whose name was “Moses” which meant “Pulled from the Water” came to the meeting place with Aaron, his brother and Senior Warden: “That did it! Find yourself a new boy! I am fed up with these people flooding me with their whining, their moans, their “poor me”! Do you know what they are complaining about now?”

Arron answered: 'Well, Yes I do; remember I get left with the people while you go gallivanting up on top of mountain tops talking with God. The people want everything to be like it was in Egypt, but without the outward chains. They don't think they have enough of what they want. They think that freedom is when you have more of what you want in your hand rather than the ability to work on becoming who you were created to be.

The Old Man complained; “Right now I don't really care about whom they were created to be; I’ll tell God to just give them what they want and get them off my back!”

Aaron said: “It won't change the situation. The only way it changes is for them to give up seeing the world as all about their own desires. It is not all about them. These are the chains that bind them into slavery for appetites.

Moses interrupted; “Yeah, yeah, I know but while that’s nice in the abstract but I want is some peace and quiet. Tell you what I’m going to do –I’ll ask God to rain down meat from the heaven and make more than enough bread to grow on the ground and then they will calm down, because if they have more than they need those things will be less important.”

Aaron smiled and said; “For us humans there is never enough of what we desire. Our task is to desire what we have and instead of grasping for more we open our hands to give thanksgiving from a grateful heart.

The Old Man said; “Yeah like that is going to happen.”

Aaron said, “Maybe we can pray not for meat but for changed hearts beginning with ours.”

Moses replied; “Sure, you do that in your spare time and I will put the order in upstairs for manna and quail. Maybe I’ll try to cage some lottery tickets so I won’t need God as much when I try to do my job.

Aaron said:  “We did not leave Egypt to switch from being slaves for Pharaoh to being slaves for God but have been made children of God. We do not work for God we work with God and doing the work which God calls us to do with God does not end but begins but with seeing things differently and changing hearts.”
The Old Man and the River of Complaints
On the river of complaints
Flooding me with whining
Even without the outward chains
Not thinking they have enough

Flooding me with whining
About what their hands wanting
Not thinking they have enough
Bound into slavery for appetites

About what their hands wanting
Praying for changing hearts
Bound into slavery for appetites
Does not end but begins

Does not end but begins
Praying for changing hearts
Even without the outward chains
On the river of complaints.


Friday, October 10, 2014

The Old Man and Aaron


A Reflection for XVIII Pentecost All Saints’ Episcopal Church, Southern Shores, NC October 12, 2014 Thomas E. Wilson, Rector
The Old Man and Aaron
The Old Man had been up on the mountain in a retreat with God. Then he was aware of a disturbing feeling inside himself. He told God that something seemed to be wrong, and he could not shake the feeling. He knew he should not have been gone so long. He picked up the tablets on which the law had been carved and started down the mountain. As he came near to the base, he started to hear the noise of celebration. Something was indeed wrong; the people had promised him that they would fast and pray for him while he was on top of the mountain, and now they seemed to be playing music and dancing. He ran the rest of the way down the mountain and saw the people feasting. He stormed into the tent looking for Aaron who he had left in charge while Moses was gone.
Chagall's Moses and Aaron in the Museum in Nice


The Old Man said, “What have you done?”


Aaron got up from his couch and offered his cup of wine to Moses and said, “Hey, chill out man, you look like you ran down the mountain. We missed you. How did your summit with God go?’
Moses said, “Fine until I heard all this caterwauling and noise. What in God’s name is going on?”


Aaron leaned back and said; “Well, it is sort of like this. The people were getting restless, and I made an executive decision that, since you weren’t here and their faith was starting to waver, I thought I would help them out. So I did a special collection and we made a god in the form of a calf and covered it with the melted gold. Since the bull calf is a sign of future fertility and good fortune, I thought I would make this as an outward and visible sign of God’s promise to take us out of Egypt and into the Promised Land.”


Moses said, “First of all, you do not make gods, God makes you. God is the creator whom we worship. We do not worship what we create. What you have created is a wish fulfillment fantasy for the future instead of paying attention to the fullness of the present.”


Aaron said, “What does it matter as long as it gets you through the night?”


Moses said, “It matters because you reduce God to your servant and reduce the relationship with God so that it is based on utility, a contract mentality of “what do I get out of this relationship?”. Contracts are defined by mutual utility where the party of the first part benefits in the exchange of services with the party of the second part for mutual benefit. I was working out an extension of the covenant God had made with Abraham.’


Aaron interrupted, “Covenant or Contract; what is the difference?”


Moses replied, “A covenant is based on mutual trust and love – not only in the good times but when things all go south. It is not about what the parties have to do, but it helps to define the relationship so each side knows what the steps to the dance are.”


Aaron retorted, “Dancing! Yes, that is exactly what we were doing. We were dancing with joy.”


Moses corrected him, “No, you were moving your bodies to get away from your fears and anxieties and to get away from yourself and others. Real dancing is when you pay attention to the person you are with, paying attention to the music which fills your soul, and paying attention to the sacred space between you.”


Aaron said, “I thought our morale was getting low and we needed a party.”


Moses replied, “God is hosting a banquet. A banquet where one sips God’s spirits to taste the joy of life, where one pays honor to the host and to the other guests and where we serve each other. We are here in the wilderness but, like the old song goes, “God prepares a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anoints my head with oil; my cup runs over.” This is the banquet to which we are invited, but you guys were dressed for another kind of party.”


Aaron complained, “The song also said “makes me down to lie in green pastures.” Look around you; do you see any green around you in the middle of this wilderness?”


Moses said, “There are none so blind that cannot see. The green pastures are here if one will only look with the eyes of abundance instead of the eyes of scarcity. Each morning we wake up in the valley of the shadow and God says that God will dance with us through that valley and still the waters of our anxieties. Today is the banquet. Come on – it’s time to get ready for the party.


Aaron replied, “Hey, let’s party hearty. Oh, by the way, can we keep the Golden Calf? It really looks good even if I do say so myself.


Moses said, “Read my lips – No Golden Calf. Got that? The trouble is that your eyes will look to it instead, to a God outside yourself as if God were something out there, somewhere else rather than in your very self. In order to talk to God, you have to go deeper inside yourself. Let go of all the stuff around you and go into your very soul; go into your dreams and you will find God as your find your very self. On second thought, forget about the party - let’s use the quiet time to clean up the mess.”










The Old Man and Aaron (Poem)
God singing, “No Golden Calf”
No getting away from yourself
Into wish fulfillment fantasies
Rather into worship of the Creator

No getting away from yourself
Not worshipping your creations
Rather into worship of the Creator
Going deeper into my very soul


Not worshipping your creations
But finding one’s true self
Going deeper into my very soul
Dancing together in the valley


Finding one’s true self
Without wish fulfillment fantasies
Dancing together in the valley
God singing, “No Golden Calf”.