Already And Not Yet

 This is the reflection and Poem I would have given but  my body had other plans and I took the Covid home Test and  it told me I had Covid so I had to cancel being around people for awhile . The theme is how we live into "Already and Not Yet" places roles and identities in our lives. It actually fits since I was ignorant how my body was moving from looking fairly healthy to be caught up to being a danger to others.

Reflection and Poem for 25th Sunday after Pentecost                 Thomas Wilson , Guest Celebrant

Episcopal Church of the Holy Trinity, Hertford, NC                    October 30, 2023

Already and Not Yet

On most Friday evenings at 5:00 for the last couple months, I enter into a habit of meeting with two long time friends for a evening of old men talking openly and honestly with each other. One was a member of the search committee that came to visit me in Georgia. I became Rector of his church for 15 years and his friend for 20 years. The other is a former Roman Catholic Priest who left the order to get married and I met him trying to persuade him to become an Episcopal Priest. I failed, but he is still a faithful attending member of the church where I was once a Rector and now no longer attend regularly to give the New Rector plenty of breathing space. We come together as three old men whose wives are no longer with us. We talk about things like; “How to fix the right Martini, or Manhattan”, “What kind of hopes for the future of our world, our country, our state, our community and our lives together and separately.” We come to pay attention to each other, to affirm who we are without jobs that define us.

Last week we were meeting at my home. That day I had gone to the grocery store, made some guacamole, ran a load of laundry, vacuumed the unit, dusted and polished the furniture, took out the trash, and walked the dog for the 3^rd time (he is an old man as well). However, when 5:00 came, the doorbell rang and I found myself in the “already and not yet” time.

They came in and took their places in the living room while we talked over the kitchen counter and I put together the food on the soon groaning card table. Took the glasses out of the freezer, the gin out of the refrigerator, shook, stirred, added the olives or cherries and delivered the drinks to their hands. The “already and not yet” time took a little less than 10 minutes and then I joined them by sitting in one of the chairs in the living room. As I sipped the first Martini, those 10 minutes hit me a a metaphor for the lessons for today that I had been looking at that morning. That is what it feels like to be in the “already and not yet” time of every moment in faith.

In the Hebrew Testament lesson for today Moses has come to the Promised Land, and he has reached the already and not yet end of his journey because he will not enter the Promised Land in this life.

In the Psalm for today the Psalmist sings the already and not yet song of the Faithful to the God who is so close and yet can seem so far away:

13 Return, O Lord; how long will you tarry? *
be gracious to your servants.

14 Satisfy us by your loving-kindness in the morning; *
so shall we rejoice and be glad all the days of our life.

15 Make us glad by the measure of the days that you afflicted us *
and the years in which we suffered adversity.

16 Show your servants your works *
and your splendor to their children.

17 May the graciousness of the Lord our God be upon us; *
prosper the work of our hands;
prosper our handiwork.

In the Epistle Paul, the Pharisee Christian Persecutor who made the journey to be an Evangelist and teacher of the Faith to the people of the Church in Thessaloniki is giving up his past, his present and future, already and not yet, on his journey to his death in Rome.

In the Gospel lesson, Jesus is meeting with the Pharisees. The Pharisee group was made up by the most faithful and distinguished men in the community. These were highly religious people. Yet, they could not lay their religion to the side, in order to listen to the already and not yet Good News of the Gospel.

Every prayer that we make is an exercise in the already and not yet. We begin by beginning to visualize what we want. Then we ground that vision in the promises of God. Suppose, we begin to pray for peace among all of God's children. We stop and visualize those who are fighting against each other and see them as members of families, as full of fear and anger. If it helps, look for pictures on line. In imagination we ask that some of that fear and pain can be given to us and pray for that healing within that person and within us. You might want to take John O'Donahue's poem into your quiet space and read that as a vocal prayer as a beginning and not yet exercise that peace begins within each one of us:

Blessing for Peace

As the fever of day calms towards twilight
May all that is strained in us come to ease.
We pray for all who suffered violence today,
May an unexpected serenity surprise them.
For those who risk their lives each day for peace,
May their hearts glimpse providence at the heart of history.
That those who make riches from violence and war
Might hear in their dreams the cries of the lost.
That we might see through our fear of each other
A new vision to heal our fatal attraction to aggression.
That those who enjoy the privilege of peace
Might not forget their tormented brothers and sisters.
That the wolf might lie down with the lamb,
That our swords be beaten into ploughshares
And no hurt or harm be done
Anywhere along the holy mountain.

This coming week we will have a service in honor of the Christian Life and Death of Dick Carlson Jr, your fellow Parishioner who has, already and not yet completed, his journey on Earth and in the arms of God. It is time also for this church, already and not yet to mourn the loss of a good faithful man in the church and to help his family mourn during this already and not yet time.

The thing about mourning is that it take a longer time than we wish. My wife died a little over four months ago. She started getting seriously sick, five years ago, shortly after I was a couple months away from the Mandatory retirement age for being a Rector of the church which I had served for fifteen years. As she was getting weaker, I stopped helping out churches out of town for six months before she died. She was on Hospice for a little less than a week. We had been in Already and not yet time for five years and I am still in it, and will be for quite awhile.

My guests who were coming to my home nine days ago shared the experience of the already and not yet journey on what it is like to be a widower and we treasured the love given to us in that journey. We learned that love is a gift freely given or withheld, one day at a time; it is never earned.

This church is in the process of the already and not yet searching for a new Rector. You began by saying good bye to the old Rector and thanking him for what he was able to do and to forgive him for what he was not able to do. I have been ordained for almost 37 and a half years served as: 1) Assistant in one church, 2)Rector in three and 3) helped out in a bunch of others in the five years since I reached the mandatory retirement age and 4) been married to Pat for 34 years, For all of those days, weeks , months and years; I have received thanks and forgiveness, both of which I needed and desired. Each day of those 37 and a half years I was already and not yet a Faithful Christian.

Martin Luther said it best, we live “simul justus et peccador”, or in English “simultaneously justified and yet a sinner” He explained “thus a Christian man (by which he means person) is righteous and a sinner at the same time, holy and profane, an enemy of God and a child of God. None of the sophists will admit this paradox because they do not understand the true meaning of justification.” By this, I think he means justification is never earned; rather it is only conferred by the Power Greater than ourselves.

Already and Not Yet

We aren't physically in the same room,

yet our dialogue isn't really monologue,

while you're not here; least there's dog

here to substitute to lighten the gloom.

It's a little like when I converse in prayer,

and the Almighty sure doesn't keep up

the Big Side, or at least say like, a “Yup”

every once in a while to say She's there.

I dream about a walking future with you,

where you point out what I might miss,

because you always pay attention to this

or that bird that moment overhead flew.

I keep wanting to hold on to you tight,

'cause letting go just doesn't seem right.

Come Make Gods For Us

 

A Reflection and Poem for XX Pentecost                            Church of the Holy Trinity, Hertford , NC October 15, 2023                                                                            Thomas E Wilson, Guest Celebrant  

Come Make Gods For Us

               Exodus 32:1-14      Psalm 106:1-6, 19-23        Philippians 4:1-9           Matthew 22:1-14

In the Hebrew Testament there is this story of the Hebrew people who had escaped for Pharaoh's clutches are no longer thankful. Moses., the people's conscience, has gone up to the Mountain to talk with God, and as last week's lessons told us God set up ten words about how to lead a life in union with the Holy. The people, however get tired of of waiting for God to make their life easy. So they make a demand that God needed to be impeached and a new God take his place, a God of their own making. If God made humans in God's own image, they make the decision that they need to return the favor and make God in their own image. A God consumed with getting richer, more powerful, and self-centered.

If you were one of these people and you had an ounce of faith in the God they had followed out of Egypt, how could you remain faithful and let others know that you would not be part of the building of this Golden Calf. You would not attend the revels of debauchery. You would remain true to this God of your heart. How would you let your companions know? As a well bred person, would you write a note asking to be excused?

When I write a reflection, I usually try to narrow down my thoughts into a poem as a meaningful guide to what I hope I want to say. My first line was “Mr. Wilson regrets he is unable to attend the revels today,” The problem is that it took me into a totally different path.

Almost 90 years ago, Noel Coward was having lunch at a Restaurant in New York wondering where his next song was going to come from. He usually started off by picking up a piece of conversation he overheard and then fashioning a song incorporating that phrase. At the next table in the restaurant, an elderly dowager was waiting for someone when the waiter came up to her; handing her a piece of paper with a message about the person she was expecting to join her for lunch. The waiter put on his most official voice and summarized the note: “Miss Otis regrets she is unable to lunch today, Madam.” Coward's lunch companions challenged him to write a song with that phrase and he came up with one. It is one of my favorites and Ella Fitzgerald sings a great version of it.

"Miss Otis Regrets (She's Unable To Lunch Today)"

Miss Otis regrets she's unable to lunch today
Madam, Miss Otis regrets she's unable to lunch today
She is sorry to be delayed
But last evening, down in Lovers Lane she strayed

Madam, Miss Otis regrets
She's unable to lunch to day

When she woke up and found
That her dream of love was gone, madam
She ran to the man
Who had led her so far astray

And from under her velvet gown
She drew a gun
And shot her lover down, madam

Miss Otis regrets
She's unable to lunch today

When the mob came and got her
And dragged her from the jail, madam
They strung her upon the old willow across the way
And the moment before she died
She lifted up her lovely head and cried, madam

Miss Otis regrets
She's unable to lunch today

Miss Otis regrets
She's unable to lunch today

These two stories, “Miss Otis Regrets” and the “Golden Calf” have the same ingredients of having words remain the same but the meaning and the context of the words change Miss Otis remains the same person but the meaning of her life has changed utterly. She changes from a person of freedom to make decisions to a person defined by the actions of others. In the Golden Calf story the word “God” remains the same, but the meaning changes from being the center of our life to being reduced to a big good luck charm. When the words remain the same but speak to a different meaning; everything changes.

The story of the Golden Calf is an ancient story about the desire to turn God into a well paid servant to do our own will. One of the problems with the whole idea of a church is that sometimes we make God in our own image and give the Divine the job of being the messenger of our own prejudices. When the Roman Emperor Constantine approached the Battle of Milvian Bridge on October 28, 312 AD, against his rival Maxentius, he saw a vision of the Cross in the Heavens and, as the story he had told goes, he was told that he would win the battle if he took the cross as his standard and made Christianity the official religion. Constantine won the battle and the Roman Empire took over the Christian Church, and remade it into an image of an army with power coming from the state. The enemies of the state became the enemies of the church. The fashions of the rulers of the state became the fashions of the church. The standards of the Empire became the standards of the church. Ministers of the church also became clerks of the state, the English word clergy comes from the French word for clerk. Heretics in the church became enemies of the state.

As the Church was busy cozying up with the state, they started to forget what the early Christians believers believed, such as the Apostle Paul who wrote in today's lesson:

Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.

But, those things that were fashionable in the state became fashionable for the church. The church who had renounced violence now supported state violence declared necessary for the church. Faithful care for the poor evolved into care for the poor as long as it does not hurt our bottom line. “Bearing false witness” became excused as political slogans. The church learned how to stop praying for forgiveness of an enemy and pray instead for destruction of an enemy until they sue for peace. Economic systems adopted by the state became the economic systems endorsed by the church. The phrase became a version of “Let us make God in our own image.”

I am reminded of the poem “Second Coming” written by William Butler Yeats, as the world changed during the 1^st World War. Yeats had seen the different Christian nations of Europe decide that fellow Christians, but of different nationalities, needed to be sacrificed for political expediency and the nations' blood lust. The nations went off to war with their vision of God on their side with chaplains paid by the state. Yeats saw that 20^th Century Golden Calf movement:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre   

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Yeats believed we had lost our way with our golden calves we had worshiped and had seen the wholesale destruction of the old Order. As in Matthew's lesson for today where the King destroyed the faithless enemies Yeats, a Irishman, had seen his home country ripped apart in Rebellion against the British Empire. He had seen the Russian, German, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, and Chinese Empires crumble. Yeats' wife contracted the Spanish Flu in the epidemic after World War I and was close to death. She recovered. Yeats hoped for the world's recovery but as in Mathew's Gospel story for today; there were still others , having what Yeats called the “Spiritus Mundi” the Soul of the World, who would not embrace the light but would embrace a journey into utter darkness. Hope would have to wait as he writes:

The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

It has been a little over a century that we have lived with that slouching beast and each week, we come back here in order to get more strength to no longer attend the revels of the Gods of our own creating. Each week we put on our wedding garments of our hope and we hold on to the truth we proclaim: “Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again”.

Come Make Gods For Us

Mr Wilson regrets he's unable to attend the revels today,

Knowing he'd be awed by the beauty of the calf of gold,

He's not sure that a God of his own desires can be sold

As a challenge to his soul when coming time to pray.

He needs to be in awe of something greater than himself,

Freed from his wish to have his massive ego pampered,

So that he may see himself as a penitent, unhampered,

By his desire for greed promised by idols off the shelf.

He has one regret about missing the revels touching,

On his longing to have a forgetting of awful loneliness,

And sharing passion without commitment, meaningless,

But to have just one moment of thoughtless clutching.

Mr. Wilson's God invites us to something deeper;

To live life without shame, to be our faith's keeper.