A
Reflection for 5th Sunday of Easter All
Saints’ Episcopal, Southern Shores, NC May 14, 2017 Thomas
E. Wilson, Rector
The
Vision of Martyr Stephen:
I came across a quote from the 20th
century literary critic and essayist, Edmund Wilson (no relation, alas):
"If I could only remember that the days were, not bricks to be laid row on
row, to be built into a solid house, where one might dwell in safety and peace,
but only food for the fires of the heart."
In John’s
Gospel’s for today, Jesus replies to Philip, “Have I been with you all this
time, Philip, and you still do not know me?” What is it to really know someone
so that we are able to see God at work?
I was not here last Sunday as Pat and I took the day
off and got out of town to visit with two old high school friends. The word
“old” is appropriate in that we were friends a long time ago and we are all 70
years old. One friend I had not seen in
50 years and the other I saw two years ago.
I am clumsy with friends, and if it were not for Pat, my own introverted
habits and workaholic tendencies would make me a hermit. Yet I find joy with
friends and these friends made the effort to push for Pat and I to join them.
On this weekend, we spent a lot of time talking and
catching up, and I was amazed at all the things they had done in their long
journeys from the time we lived in the same neighborhood and attended school
together in the very conservative section of upstate New York. The friendship
we had had less to do with deep shared interests, with the exception of
mysteries about girls and life, and more about geographical proximity, living
on parallel streets in the same development,
each named for women in the developer’s life - Alice, Elizabeth and
Lolita. We inhabited the same undeveloped lots on which to play pick-up
baseball in the spring and another lot for football in the fall, the same river
to swim and canoe in the summer, and the same cove to ice skate and to throw
snowballs in the winter. We all had siblings who we complained about and parents
who we thought were so out of touch. While we complained about some of the same
teachers and were embarrassing the same herd of vulnerable eligible girls in
front of whom we strutted and tried out our lines and maneuvers, and we
gathered in the same places to wonder what it was all about, we all had
different interests. Upon graduation, we went in three different directions -
one to study Art in Ohio, one to study Political Science in Pennsylvania, and
me to North Carolina to study Drama, as a continuation of the days “laying
bricks row upon row to build the solid house for safety and peace.”
The first summer home from college, we all had
summer jobs, and we were spending a lot of our free time longing to be back at
our college campuses where “real” life was going on instead of being stuck for
the summer in what we saw as the backwater of civilization that we used to love
but now in our imaginations we were fleeing. One memory I have is riding down
the road leaning out the windows of the car banging on the roof singing along
to the Rolling Stones complaining, “I
Can’t Get No Satisfaction”. That was
the last summer we spent together. We changed majors, we all got married to
people we met while we were in college living in those different states and scattered
to build our separate futures, “row upon row”..
We communicated mainly by second-hand rumor. One of
my friends was the one who tried to do the work of connecting us and those two
were helped because their parents still lived in the same neighborhood and kept
up better with each other. I did not go to my 10th high school
reunion because I was embarrassed that I was back in school working on “row
upon row” as was the case for my 20th. I did go back for my 30th and 50th,
but had only brief time to reconnect in situations filled with noise and
hundreds of people. I did not meet their wives. But last weekend was a time we
all got together with our wives and without the noise of others.
I listened to the stories that we shared, “food for
the fires of the heart” and was frustrated that there was not more time to know
these people better. We shared heart-breaking stories without the bravado of
protecting our images. I was floored with how much love was in each of the
marriages, marriages for 50 years so full of love, and that they trusted there
was enough love to share with others. I was impressed with how much had changed
in their lives, but how much was still there from the past. We are different,
but we experience much of the same struggles in re-inventing ourselves instead
of staying stagnant. God was there is the space between us. Years ago we spent
a lot of time together, but somehow we missed seeing the holy that was there.
Like Philip in the lesson from John’s Gospel who has
been around Jesus for so long, working for him, traveling with him, spending
time with him, but he never got around to seeing the presence of God in the
space between them. Earlier on in John’s Gospel, Jesus sees the 5000 and asks
Philip how could they feed that crowd. All Philip can say is how much this
might cost and the threat it might be to the religious enterprise. Philip can’t
for the life of him figure out a solution because Philip is busy seeing the
limits of what he can’t do and what he knows, instead of going beyond into what
God is and can be doing. All he could see and feel was the physical hunger
rather than the hunger for the Holy. I have known these friends for almost 60
years and it wasn’t until I stopped thinking of myself as the center of the
universe that I was able to be in awe of who God is in each of them. We did not
talk much about religion, but God was there in the space between us, sharing
the “food to feed the fires of our hearts”.
The vision to see God is also in the lesson from the
Book of Acts. Here is Stephen, surrounded by people who hate him and are taking
him out to stone him. You would think that Stephen might have some thought of
his own safety, protection and agenda. Except Stephen looks with the vision of
God and he see in his enemies people whom God loves, and he prays for them for
God to forgive them. The God that is in Jesus, the God that lovingly forgives,
is found also in Stephen when he has his vision, to see how God sees.
Today, how will we view the day before us? Will we
see the day as “food for the fires of the heart” or as “bricks to be laid row
on row, to be built into a solid house, where one might dwell in safety and
peace.” It all depends on whose eyes we use.
The Vision of Martyr Stephen:
I
have dreams of dying saying “Don’t hold this against them.”
As Stephen did when he
looked into his death seeing glory
Instead of the limits
of his own earthly life ending his story
Or the possibilities
about how he won’t collect more to come.
Daily
I have to say again to myself that it is not all about me
Or my resentments, my
ambitions or my own personal worth
Of all that I have
clutched or acquired since the day of my birth
And would I then be
able to open my hand and set them all free?
I
find that it is important I stop to open my eyes to the glory
Of the stars, the
trees, the birds of the air, waves of the sea,
The friends, lovers,
opportunities, all that have come to me
As precious gifts from
the one who is telling the greater story.
Today
let me give thanks “All things come from Thee, O Lord
And
of thine own have I given thee,” ever singing final chord.
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