"What Did You Hope To See?"

A Reflection for Advent III                                       All Saints’ Church, Southern Shores, NC  December 11, 2016                                                            Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

Isaiah 35:1-10               James 5:7-10              Matthew 11:2-11        Psalm 146:4-9

"What Did You Hope To See?"

This is the third Sunday of Advent and we have lit the third candle in the Advent wreath, the rose-colored candle which is a symbol of Joy. The lessons have elements of joy in them. But wait, you say - if this is a time of repentance, aren’t we supposed to feel bad and not be joyful?  It would seem so, except the word the New Testament uses for “repent” is a translation of the Greek word metanoia which is a combination word meaning “a changing of awareness”. 

I was raised in the Episcopal Church, but I left when I went off to college because I found no meaning in services and stayed away because I had wanted something greater than going through old rituals. I had changed physical addresses from my childhood home in conservative upstate New York to a very liberal university community in North Carolina. I was changing, becoming an adult. All in all, it was a change of awareness.

I was a Drama major for the first two years of school, and one of my assignments in the Directing class was to direct a scene with a couple of my classmates. I chose a scene in George Bernard Shaw’s play Man and Superman, a dream sequence from Act III, Don Juan in Hell.  The protagonist of the play, John Tanner, has a dream in which he appears as Don Juan from the Mozart opera. You may remember at the end of the opera, Don Juan is dragged into Hell by the statue of the man he killed in a duel, the Commander, the father of Dona Ana, the girl that Don Juan would not commit to and whose so-called duty-bound honor caused the duel to begin with. The dream sequence is a debate between Don Juan and the Devil about the meaning of life and the Commander and Dona Ana are there to give their thoughts. There was an opening essay that Shaw wrote that I found meaningful part of which reads:  

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

In the last part of the scene Don Juan wants to leave Hell for only the wicked are comfortable there. He asks for the way out and the statue answers: "The frontier between Heaven and Hell is only the difference between two ways of looking at things; any road will take you across."

Later on I had a series of changes of awareness that made me leave acting and eventually go back to the Episcopal Church. Yet, every day is a day of metanoia when we can have a change of awareness to see joy.

The Song from Isaiah, a song of joy sung to the exiles as they begin to hear news of the possible return to their home after the years of exile in Babylon starts off with:

The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad,
the desert shall rejoice and blossom;

like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly,
and rejoice with joy and singing. 

I remember some years ago when Pat and I took a vacation trip to the American Southwest, and there had been a rain that had watered the desert and all of these flowers which had lain dormant for so long just blossomed overnight, bursting out with joy. We think of the desert as dead, but it is alive for those who take the time to see the life. The desert has its own beauty, but it is so wonderful to walk among the wildflowers in the desert as they celebrate a whole new dimension of life.

The Psalm for today is one of the last six songs of praise in the Psalter, a song of praise of God for bringing joy to all sorts and conditions of people who usually are vulnerable to exploitation and thereby often joyless - the prisoners, the oppressed, those beaten down, the blind, the widows, the orphans, and the resident aliens sojourning in the land. God is promiscuous in giving joy.

The Epistle of James suggests that the people need to be patient, as the farmer who waits for the rain to fall is patient. Joy is at hand.

This song of joy is in the Gospel lesson from Matthew for today.  John the Baptizer is a prisoner in Herod’s dungeon. He had spent his life looking forward to the joy to come, and now he is in prison. He sends his followers to see what is happening, and Jesus tells them that the Songs of the Psalter and of Isaiah are coming true and there is healing. John’s life was not wasted. John could now have some joy on the boundary of heaven and hell for a life lived in a mighty purpose. 

Jesus then asks the people who had come out to the wilderness to see him, “What did you hope to see?” When I talk with people who come here to this church, I ask the same kind of question. Some people come out habit for they have always gone somewhere and they find themselves here; therefore they show up to satisfy the compulsion of habit. Some come out of hope that they will find something different. Some come with an expectation that there will be some sort of advantage for themselves or their children. Some come fleeing from a past experience. Some come searching for answers. Some come out of a need to join a community of people wrestling with better questions. Some come out of emptiness in their lives. Some come to find a way to make a difference in thanksgiving for the fullness of their lives. People come for all sorts of reasons, but I suggest that they come because there is a pull from the spiritual core of their lives that is still too deep for them to be consciously aware. 

My theology is that all things have a spiritual core for we were created by, and participate in, the one spirit. We are not human beings who have spirits, but spiritual beings who have human bodies that we inhabit in the brief time we are in this limited dimension. We come to find joy, a meaning to this short life, a mighty purpose, as we stand each day on the boundary of Heaven and Hell.

What Did You Hope To See?

Came to see if I could return to my youth

when I knew with certain no persuading.

But no longer a child, those days fading

when I trusted a single authority's truth.

Suspicion unbidden arising over agenda;

what they are trying to pull over on me?

How do the magicians hide what I'll see

'fore my hands open, becoming a spender

of my precious resources of independence;

holding awhile before committing so soon

to avoid hearing a trumpet's uncertain tune,

just limit involvement to a mere attendance.

Yet I yearn to be something greater than self,

to become more than just a sitting on a shelf.

The Covers Come To Town

 Went to a Don and Catherine Bryant Cultural Series concert this week as young talent from the Virginia Opera performed a concert of arias and songs from different operas. All Saints Episcopal Church was the venue as the room was alive with sound. God was present at this Creative Exercise gave praise for gifts shared and appreciated

The Covers Come To Town

The covers came in to the town this week,

the young ones who come in for the leads

waiting for odd break when they can show

how much talent is packed into new frames.

They practiced the roles, in case, God forbid,

something might happen; well planted germs,

an off season oyster or a too filled wine glass.

They are ready and they strut their stuff.

The squared jaw mezzo dominates each note,

The wannabe villain basso sneers each tone.

The thin soprano bypasses theoretical limits.

The tenor charmingly oozes seductive power.

They are ready.

They are hungry.

The applause washes over them.

Gasps and bravoes sweeten their dreams.

We old folks in the crowd fantasize

being there when Callas or Sutherland

as waiting young covers got the break.

Repenting Advent Ad Hominems Reflection for 2nd Sunday of Advent. 4, December

A Reflection for Advent II                All Saints’ Episcopal Church, Southern Shores, NC

December 4, 2016                              Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

Isaiah 11:1-10       Romans 15:4-13      Matthew 3:1-12     Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19

Repenting Advent Ad Hominems

This is the second Sunday in Advent, and the Candle we lit on the wreath is the one that is a symbol of peace. Paul writes in his letter to the Romans', the passage for today: "May the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another." One of my definitions of peace is "to live in harmony." Harmony is not about tolerance of other people, but about the awareness that we are all singing the same song and it is the myriad of voices that provides the depth. One of the things I enjoy about our choir is how they are able to look past each other’s foibles when they are working together because they have a vision put before them by Steve, the organist/choir director, and they care for each other. While each member has a healthy ego, they don’t squabble over who gets the most attention. Warren Judge used to have a motto: “It doesn't matter who gets the credit as long as it gets done." Love is not a feeling you have, but what you do with the life that you have.

Years ago I really liked this Gospel lesson because it allowed me to attack certain groups of privileged people. It was fun to parade as the righteous rebel and stick it to all those “other” people, using scripture to back me up. I picked and chose my targets carefully as I was soft on  the sins of lust, gluttony, and sloth (those closest to me), but hard on those exhibiting any of the rest of the seven deadly sins - wrath, greed, envy, and pride - sins which I in my delusion, mistakenly thought were not part of my repertoire. I wanted God to beat them up, if not in this life, at least in the next. My theology seemed more in tune with the character Maude who kept saying, “God will get you for that, Arthur!”

Yet, though I was a radical, I was rather conservative in my theology, so I was always trying to steer a comprehensive path between the radical and conservative. That comprehensive path, rejecting the either-or false choices, not middle of the road, but instead choosing “both/and” is what the author of Matthew usually tries to do in his Gospel. However, in today’s Gospel passage, Matthew deviates from that plan when he remembers the Sadducees and Pharisees attacked by John the Baptizer with all sorts of spleen and vigor. Matthew, raised as a good Jew, follows Jesus, and in today’s lesson, rejects what he considers the too conservative elements of these Jewish traditions, those establishment figures of the day who looked down on the early Christian movement with which John was allied. Matthew, remembering John, returned their distain and accused them of corruption and hypocrisy.

I have come to the point of my life where I am a Priest in a religious establishment which would make me a good candidate for being a Sadducee, and I have a lot of rules in my life which I find helpful and which I want other people to follow, which make me an aspiring Pharisee. I would suggest that Matthew, as John, seems to be more than a little unfair by using ad hominem attacks, where a person is smeared for being a member of a certain group, as we saw being displayed in the last election cycle.

Yet, I realize that All Saints’ is full of people who are prominent in the community doing good things but could be attacked for not doing more by those who find fault with us for not being more radical, thereby being modern day Sadducees and Pharisees. We are not perfect and we will always be vulnerable to attacks by people using ad hominem arguments. 

Advent is a time when we are all called to repent. Now repent does not mean to cower in shame for not being perfect. Repent means to take a look at our lives and stop what doesn’t seem to work in building a loving healthy relationship with God and our neighbors. “Repenting” means to take the time to be honest with ourselves.

In ancient Rome when a general would come back from a victory, there would be held a parade of triumph with him riding in a chariot where he could hear all the accolades of praise.  Yet there would always be a slave standing behind the general holding the laurel crown over his head and repeating the phrase, “Remember that you are only a man.”

Carl Jung in Visions Seminar wrote: “Only those people who can really touch bottom can be human. Therefore Meister Eckhart says that one should not repent too much of one’s sins because it might keep one away from grace. One is only confronted with the spiritual experience when one is absolutely human.”

I was asked to do a Clergy Wellness survey, and one question was “How often do you have the thought that if you could live your life over, you would change things?”  Now a perfect person would say that they would never change a thing, but I am not perfect. I love where I am and who I am with, but my life is strewn with mistakes and bad choices and hurt people which I regret. Yet all of this has made me who I am. I would not be the person I am if I had not messed up so often. I am a deeply flawed human being, but I am a beloved of God.

Marin Luther spent the first part of his religious life being ashamed of all his failings. He would hear the words of judgment by Matthew’s John the Baptizer and realize that he was like the Sadducees and Pharisees, praised by the people and yet deep down a hypocrite. Of these failings and that shame he said: "I was myself more than once driven to the very abyss of despair so that I wished I had never been created. Love God? I hated him!" One writer relates: “He wore Johann (von Staupitz, his confessor) out, trying to remember every sin that his mind would try to cover up. On at least one occasion, he confessed for six hours straight.” Von Staupitz tried to keep telling him to lighten up on himself and remember God’s grace. It is only when it finally sinks in to Martin that he is a human who needs God’s grace that he starts to change his theology. He learned how to love himself as God loved him. I wish I could say that Martin was more loving with other people, but we each do what we can and we are all works in progress. I need to repent, so I am in  no place to judge others and have no right to do so. That’s a job for someone with a higher pay grade than any of us.

Repenting Advent Ad Hominems

Years ago I used to not like you

Sneering at whatever your kind

my giving traits to you assigned,

you reminded me of one I knew.

But the one I saw was a shadow

who I wanted to keep so hidden

that could never again be bidden

to act like a Curly, Larry or Moe.

A stooge I wanted to laugh at

and claim we did never share

the same DNA matched pair.

Insults rebound with a splat

of metaphorical custard pie

landing on me who let it fly.

The Seer Prepares To See

A Reflection for I Advent                                              All Saints’ Church, Southern Shores, NC November 17, 2016                                                  Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

Isaiah 2:1-5      Romans 13:11-14         Matthew 24:36-44       Psalm 122

The Seer Prepares To See

The Hebrew Testament lesson for today is a vision from the Prophet Isaiah of Jerusalem in the 8^th Century BC. He had a vision from God during the time of upheaval in 8^th Century BC in the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah. The nations are surrounded by enemies, crippled by misrule, impoverished by corruption, and bitterly divided between the poor and their rich exploiters, and yet God sends a message for Isaiah to give to his people. A Prophet is a “seer”, one who sees the messages of God. Visions are not simple memos sent; they are messages sent within the context of images that are approached spiritually. If you try to do it literally, you will be frustrated.  These visions are kept by the followers of the Prophets who suggest that these visions might be of help to people and nations yet unborn in different places and circumstance in the future.

My own theology is that God speaks in visions to us all the time and to all sorts and conditions of people, but most of us ignore them because we are too busy with our own agendas if it is day or dismiss them as mere dreams that don’t make sense at night. I suggest that if we are to hear God, we must take time to listen.  Too often our prayer time is devoted to telling God what he/she needs to do to make us feel good.  I walk my dog every morning before the sun rises, and I walk slowly because 1) My dog like to sniff everything and uses the time to search, and 2) I use the time to search and pay attention to the stars and listen to the sounds of the ocean and the forest. God uses the whole universe to speak to us of God’s love. When we become aware of God’s overflowing love, then we are able to become a “seer”, one who sees the world from God’s perspective.

At night, I don’t consider dreams to be “mere”. I see them as the heart of God trying to get through to me when my conscious mind, with its preoccupation with my own ego, is asleep. The messages I hear from God by day or by night are not things like to diversify my investment portfolio. God does not speak to me in prose, but more like poems without rhyme and meter but instead with symbols and images.

Let me give you an example. I hear a fox cry in the predawn darkness. I reflect on what the fox might be saying to me. I ask myself, “If I were the fox, what might be my cry about?”  I think of someone I love and the pain they are in. I am reminded that I need to reach out to this person and share their pain, so they won’t feel as if they are alone crying in the dark.

Looking at Isaiah’s vision, I would treat it as a dream. Since he shared that dream with us and I am listening to hear God, I will claim that dream as mine. If this were my dream and all the images and people in the dream are part of me, then I would see that I am part of that world being called to dwell in the presence of God, the house of the LORD, which is not somewhere far away in time and space but right here and right now, wherever I am or wander. If the nations dwelling with God are to beat their swords into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks, then I am to take my anger and aggression and transform them into things that are used to harvest God’s love.  To whom am I feeling that disapproval, or is it that part of me with whom I refuse to share my love? To walk in the light of God might mean to shine light on my own darkness and claim my shadow. Is it a message for me as a member of my country or my community or church that I need to speak and share God’s vision of light in the darkness? 

Paul writes a letter to the Romans - or is it also a letter to us? Before I went to Seminary, I read a book by someone who had a secretary type the Epistles and then send a chapter to him in the mail. He was to read it as if the letter was from a friend and addressed to him. If it were my letter; what is the darkness and what I am keeping in it?

What if the Psalm for today is to be sung to me as if I were the House of the LORD, if I were Jerusalem in which Peace needs to dwell within its walls?

What if Jesus in today’s Gospel lesson is telling me his vision of the need to be fully aware of the presence of God in all things and I am to pay attention?

We print the lessons in the bulletin so that you might have time before the service to sit down in the silence and ask what is God saying to you by these lessons before you hear them being read aloud. Because I want to be faithful to take a Sabbath Day of rest on Friday, I post my reflections and poems on the web with links to the lessons usually on the Thursday before the Sunday so those who cannot be here can join us in reflecting or for you to think about for a while before you come to the service. My reflections and poems are not meant to be the last word, but an invitation to a continuing dialogue. 

I am not interested in your approval of my work - I am too old to worry about anyone’s approval - but I am interested in being part a community that actively listens to God. If we aren’t listening to God in order to transform the world we live in so that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven, then is this whole church stuff a waste of time and money?

The Seer Prepares To See

Open my gate that will visit and bless my garden.

Open my door that you may enter giving pardon

Open my shadows that all my fears might be set free

Open my hope that darkness will ne’er overcome me.

Open my pride that I need never from thee to hide

Open my hurts so that forgiving I’ll be at your side

Open my mouth that I might sing within your song.

Open my heart that I rest beside you all the day long.

Open my imagination that I might glimpse thy view.

Open my will that I might be destined to follow you.

Open my ears so that I may hear the cry in the night.

Open my eyes so that I may see ocean wave’s sight.

Open my lips that I might feel soft brush of thy kiss.

Open my pores of skin to sense caresses of thy bliss.

Open me that I might truly see.

.

The Thanksgiving Gatherings

A Reflection for Thanksgiving Day 2016                  All Saints’ Church, Southern Shores, NC November 24, 2016                                                            Thomas E. Wilson Rector

Deuteronomy 26:1-11             Psalm 100        Philippians 4:4-9         John 6:25-35

The Thanksgiving Gatherings

Thanksgiving gatherings have always occupied a soft spot in my memories. For many years it was a time for all my father’s side of the family to get together - my Grandfather and Grandmother Wilson, my father’s older sister, her husband and their six children and their dogs. On Wednesday morning my mother, father, us four children, and our dog would cram into the car for the interstate drive. We all stayed in the one house for several days, from Wednesday afternoon to Sunday after lunch, when we left to drive home into the west. It was a time of rejoicing and wonderful hospitality and the best behavior with people we loved. Although I remember one evening flying through the air while falling out of the upper bunk bed onto the floor after some roughhousing with my older brother Paul, it was mostly a time of God’s Peace. 

Paul - the Apostle Paul, not my brother - wrote to the Philippians to rejoice:

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.”

At our cousins’ home, the stories were told, the photo albums pulled out, and there were lots of “ooh” and “aahs” about how everybody had changed over the years. The food was great, but the gathering was not about satisfying our individual or corporate appetites, but instead, the most important part was how we were reminded that we were all connected. When the prayers were said at every meal, we were aware that we were part of something much, much, greater than just this branch of the Wilson family. We were connected to our past, the future, to the dead who were not at the table but in our memories, and to the whole of creation. Each of us was a gift from God to each other and to the world.

The Hebrew Testament passage for Thanksgiving is from the Book of Deuteronomy which reminds  the people of the Covenant to use the time of the harvest to remember who they are. They remember their past and their place in the universe with a prayer containing a basic confession of faith told in story format: “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor . . . “, and they relate the story of the hard times wandering through the wilderness and how God was with them every step of the way in this bountiful creation.

The Gospel story for today is from the John’s Gospel, and it takes place after the feeding of the 5000 in which the people gathered together to be fed in the lonely place. The people ate all they needed, and there were 12 baskets left from the five barley loaves and two fish. The hope that Jesus had would be that the people would be reminded about who they were - descendants of the wandering Aramean who still had God by their side wherever they were and that there was no place God-forsaken in all of creation, of which they were an integral part. The problem was that they just wanted more food, they wanted to feed their own appetites. They refused to see themselves as part of something larger than their own desires. Jesus tries to remind them that he and they are gifts, not just consumers, in a universe of gifts, and that God is present right then and there.

Today many of us are gathering with all sorts and conditions of people to remember that we are connected to the past and future, that we have received many gifts and that we are ourselves gifts, not just consumers, in a universe of gifts.  And for that we give thanks, as well as for the knowledge that God is present in all times and in all places. It is a time to rejoice, a time to give thanks, a time to be on your best behavior, and a time to remember who we are.

The Thanksgiving Gatherings

The counters are sagging with weight of the meals

bringing together those different family and friends

waiting for stories to pause, parade coming to ends.

Latest babies passed around making pictures real.

The empty places speaking of conflicting agenda

and repositioning members through the mazes

of relationships. A religious ceremony amazes

new friends acting as this year’s new addenda.

Folding tables and chairs are borrowed to give

each an awareness that all belong in this gathering

of noisy laughs, kisses, hugs, even some blathering,

finding a seat and voice to all coming here to live

in this day long moments of giving God Thanks

while regretting our yearlong posing as cranks.