"What Is That?"

Reflection for Proper 13, Year B                       Thomas E. Wilson, Guest Preacher

August 1, 2021                                                             Holy Trinity Episcopal Hertford, NC

Exodus 16:2-4,        Psalm 51:1-13               Ephesians 4:1-16           John 6:24-35

“What Is That?”

Thank you for having me here today. I am a retired Priest and it has been my honor to have known and worked with the last four of your Rectors. I have been here for many meetings and services in the 18 years I have been here in this diocese. However, this is the first time I have spoken from this pulpit during a Sunday service, so your Rector can get out of town this week for a well earned vacation.

Last week, Robert started off his reflection with a story of a previous vacation when he had been snorkeling in the ocean and looked down to see a gigantic shark. It was a good story but in all honesty I have to warn you my story doesn't have any sharks. Your task, when Robert gets back, is to say this line; “Gosh we missed you! That guest preacher was OK, but in no way does he come close to you.”

Practice that line.

Last week, my stepson was visiting on the Outer Banks, and since he is a Chef, and I am only passable cook, his mother and I took him out to an expensive restaurant. After we got our drinks and ordered our entrees, suddenly there is was! What is that? And what is was, was a small loaf of home made bread. Just sitting there with some small plates with butter and knives It smelled great. It looked beautiful, but what was its purpose? What is that?

Was its purpose to help us to gain more weight to all the pounds that I had put on in the time of the pandemic? OR Was it a sign of welcome? Was it to prepare us for the time that the three of us could share in community, to share the love that we had for each other? Was it there to remind us that we were guests, not just customers that were paying for the entrees and drinks? Was it a reminder of thanksgiving that we were encouraged to treat the other patrons of the restaurant and the staff with respect! Was it a sign that we were connected to something beyond our table? Was it something that we could take home into our daily life? The answer of course is “Yes!”

The Hebrew Testament story is about bread, the manna in the wilderness. The word manna does not mean bread you bake in an oven, but is is what they called the stuff that formed on the ground during the Exodus. They called it “Manna”, which is a word translated as - “What is that?” They used it for food, but it was more than that. It was the building of a community dependent on a daily substance shared with each other. This bread, this manna, could not be hoarded for individual use, since it would spoil. There was enough for everybody and it was a daily reminder that they needed a power greater than themselves to give them all they needed for the journey. This is a journey in which there was no first class, business class or tourist class; they were all equal in the sight of God. The Manna- “What is that?”, wasn't all they wanted, but it was all they needed.

Every year at the Passover Seder, observant Jews gather in families and communities where they celebrate what God has, and is, doing in our lives. In that observance, there is a song of 14 verses, where each verse remembers an act of kindness by God in each step of the entire Exodus story. At the end of every verse there is a response, “Dayenu”, “even that would have been enough”. Manna is in the 9^th verse of giving thanks.

"If He had drowned our oppressors in (the sea)it, and had not supplied our needs in the desert for forty years Dayenu, it would have sufficed us!

If He had supplied our needs in the desert for forty years, and had not fed us the manna Dayenu, it would have sufficed us!

If He had fed us the manna, and had not given us the Shabbat Dayenu, it would have sufficed us!"

This 10^th Dayenu is the transition from God's gifts of kindness for one's own needs for safety and security to moving to a deeper relationship with God and neighbor. Shabbat is the day of rest in order to get closer to God.

The next, the 11^th, has to do with the encounter with the eternal at Sinai, being open to grow deeper,then the 12^th kindness is Torah, the teachings of how to live a gracious life within a community and dealing with neighbor,

THEN the 13^th kindness, the moving into a Promised land where they remember that they once were slaves and would no longer treat others as they had been treated, now putting the bitterness of the past behind,

THEN the 14^th kindness, the building of a Temple, a becoming of one with the eternal and living into a new future.

There is more to come after getting fed the bread from heaven and getting your own needs met. For the mathematicians in each one of us: 9 out of 14 is 64%.

One of the things I used to do before I went to seminary was to teach Social Work and Counseling in a college. If any student in my classes had said that they were pleased to get a 64%, I would have questioned their desire to take that course seriously. I always thought that people taking my classes ought to make a commitment rather than just showing up. To quote from the Mae West 1933 movie, I'm No Angel, “It is not the men in my life that count, it's the life in my men!”

In the Gospel lesson from John for today, Jesus sees the people who keep coming back and he notices that many of them have reached the 64^th percentile of the journey; they come because they want to continue to be fed. The old, “I come because I benefit from attending the meetings”, reason. The writer of John's Gospel relates:

Then Jesus said to them, 'Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

For Jesus, “showing up” is the first step, but then he invites them to believe. The word “believe” does not mean an acceptance of a fact as a mental exercise; like I “believe” there is a city in Nebraska named Omaha. I believe because I have gotten insurance and steaks from companies in Omaha, Nebraska. However, beyond what I get, I have no real need to clutter my life up with Omaha. I am sure it is a lovely place, and maybe when I drive back out to see my daughter in Colorado the next time, I might be tempted to take a right in Kansas City on to I-29 and go an extra 180+ miles through Iowa and Nebraska. It will take a commitment of time, energy and resources. Who knows maybe it is worth it? Some people say it is a lovely place and I have read about it, seen movies about it. To really believe in Omaha, I would have to make a commitment to enter into life there, and help share the bread of God for the life of the world by changing my life priorities by working with other residents of Omaha to deepen our shared commitments to justice, peace, community and faith. To be prepared to die in Omaha.

To believe in Jesus is about entering into life with him, in him and through him. He invites them, and us, into eternal life. Eternal life does not mean just living after you are dead, but living into the eternal, in this time and place, to see with wonder and awe through the eyes of the eternal,

to commit time, energy and resources,

Dayenu!

to forgive constantly even those people who don't “deserve it”,

Dayenu!

to love our enemies,

Dayenu!

to live as we are constantly aware of the loving presence of the eternal in our lives,

Dayenu!

to have a life as if what I want is almost irrelevant compared to trusting the guide on our journey,

Dayenu!

to turn the other cheek,

Dayenu!

to trust in the wisdom and power of the eternal greater than ourselves,

Dayenu!

to care for our neighbor,

Dayenu!

to live as if all of this life is a gift of kindness.

Dayenu!

Dayenu! In case you were counting, that was the 9^th commitment, Even that would be enough, but thank God, there is even more kindnesses to come!

What Is That?

Surrounded by a bunch of “What Is That?”s

occurring within my dreams, or waking life,

or times of prayer, or unasked times of strife,

reaching beyond simple dismissal of “that's that!”s.

Everything has a life in this growing creation,

where a rock is not just a rock, but a product

of forces bringing it together in an economic,

beyond just staying in one's own station.

The artist continues to do her work,

calling me to change, grow deeper,

until that time of meeting a reaper,

when I'll finally see hadron and quark.

Asking that question is what's important;

for only then can we see infinite portent.

Marian Wilson"s Mother's Day 1946

 

MARIAN WILSON'S MOTHER'S DAY 1946

My pregnant mother had her first Mother's Day

in California with my six month old brother,

and me, two months in the womb, as the other,

as our parents start planning a new place to stay.

She was an Ohio girl, loving Southern California,

where winter never intrudes, and fruit's always fresh.

The war had ended. Now to start civilian life afresh:

Dad to finish school and Mom to leave her Nirvana.

She, by trial and error, did the best for her kids; teaching

by example how to be parents, loving the burdens,

giving her plenty of stories, and gist for my sermons,

when I try metaphors of God's love in my preaching.

She taught us about the Divine, not in words but in deeds,

when helping us, her prize flowers, not turn into weeds.

Pink Moons, Ibis and Grackles

 

Pink Moons, Ibis and Grackles

The Pink Moon was shining last night,

but its not color wasn't the attraction,

for it was still Leto's daughter's chariot

reminding us to look beyond distraction.

Looking for signs of hope to meet change,

for time when blossoms come to shrubs.

The next morning, a flock of White Ibis

returns to the yard, searching for grubs.

The Ibis, strafed by pestering grackles,

bends, stretches, focuses on their work,

bringing joy to those of us marveling,

reminding us to stop being a jerk.

In my mind, grackles try to steal seeds

of concentration, on doing faithful deeds.

When Dream Collide

 

When Dreams Collide

Coming back from mid-afternoon walk,

dog on leash led the walk up the stairs,

one flight - which should have been two,

old man deep in his old man memories,

of time when a girl, her face now lost,

in the curtains of time, but, oh, the laugh,

still lingering, and the old man smiled,

as the dog turned into an entrance,

not the one next floor where home was,

as the old man opening door, wondering,

what had happened to decoration? Then the

new couple moving in, busily unpacking

looked up and nervously smiled at them,

an intruder and dog, in their new dream.

The old man's embarrassed laugh began,

wondering if they were making a smiling,

silent vow to lock the door from now on,

behind memory's curtain, the girl laughed.

What About Us Goats?

 

Poem/Reflection for the Feast of Christ the King         St. Andrew's-By-The-Sea, Nags Head, N.C.

November 22, 2020                                                      Thomas E Wilson, Guest Celebrant

Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24 Psalm 100 Ephesians 1:15-23 Matthew 25:31-46

What About Us Goats?

The Feast of Christ the King began in the 1920's when Pope Pius XI was trying to deal with a world which had changed as a result of the first World War. Kingdoms, which formerly could be counted on to support the church, had been overthrown and democracies were rising as a norm for societies. Pius wanted the people to remember that all people needed to be ruled not be majority opinion but by Christ as King in their daily life. That is not a bad thought; the problem lies in what is the nature of being ruled. Are we being ruled by love or by fear?

Pius had a fear of the future, myopic nostalgia for the past and anxiety of the present. He wanted a return to order and therefore he made alliances, which he came to regret, with people who would impose order by hijacking the past, constructing a comforting myth for the future, and lying about the present; people like Mussolini in Italy, Franco in Spain and Hitler in Germany who imposed order through fear. Their image these rulers gave of Christ the King, was as a warrior prince who ruled by reward and punishment.

A couple of Sundays ago, your Rector preached on Matthew's Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins, where the Foolish Virgins who ran out of oil to keep their lamps burning, were not allowed to be admitted to the Feast of the Bridegroom. In this Parable, Matthew remembers Jesus suggesting that the Bridegroom is in the role of the Second Coming of Christ, and in Matthew's remembrance, the Foolish Virgins are told by the Risen Christ that they were not fit to be Christians when the oil in your lamp, your faith, runs low. Your Rector allowed as sometimes the oil in his lamp runs low, when he catches himself muttering non-Biblical un-loving words to an erratic driver who cuts in front of him in the crazy summer tourist traffic. If all your Rector knew about Jesus was the punchline of this parable, then he would indeed be in trouble. But your Rector puts his trust in the full understanding of the Good News.

As I looked over those lessons from two weeks ago and the lessons for this week, I reflected on the Matthean community, out of which the Gospel of Matthew was shared in oral form before it was reduced to written form about forty years after the Death, Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus. If you had been waiting for a long time, forty or more years, for Jesus to come back, you might have had some feeling like your oil of faith was running close to empty. Wilson's theory about how I might act if I had to wait for decades, is that I might be more than a touch cranky and less than comfortable with those who fall short of my expectations. I think I would be tempted to suggest that some people needed to be sent to Hell as goats. That is being a dysfunctional human with a fear of the future, myopic nostalgia for the past and anxiety of the present.

That parable of the foolish virgins suggests that God will exclude those who fall short of the expectations of God. That message can be seen as echoed in today's Gospel lesson for the Feast of Christ the King, where Christ as the King in the Second Coming will divide the sheep from the goats; consigning those who disappoint, the goats, to the fires of Hell; and those who live up to the mark, the sheep, will be rewarded by being allowed to join in the new Kingdom of the Heavens.

What is the difference between Sheep and Goats? I was watching a film on You Tube about one homesteader's opinion. He said that Goats are like teenagers; always wanting to test the limits. They have no fear and will drive you crazy on wanting to be the boss over their own lives. Sheep, on the other hand, having a lot of fear, are more content to stay safe in the flock.

In the human flocks and herds when victors win; “To the victor belongs the spoils!” Victors punish their opponents and reward their true followers. The Victors try not to reward people who challenge their authority. Heck, we just had an election and a lot of people who supported the loser in that election are going to have to find new employment and those who worked hard to win the approval will get prestige appointments. With the exception of Abraham Lincoln, as documented by Doris Goodwin's book “Team of Rivals”, most Victors usually choose safe people, not rivals who might challenge them, for appointments in government.

But what does Jesus do? When Jesus is resurrected, does he come back and read the riot act to his disciples who all let him down? All of them betrayed Jesus; Judas did it for money, the rest of the disciples by denial and refusing to stand with Jesus. They are all, all of them, goats! Yet he gives them his peace. Sheep or goats, it does not matter, he gives them his love. He does not consign them to Hell for their lack of faith; rather he shares his Holy Spirit and blesses those who are not worthy to be blessed. He does not talk about a return to order of the past, but a building of a new creation. He doesn't waste time of strict conformity but chooses all sorts of people, like for instance Paul, the writer of the Epistle for today, who once was his enemy, but the love of the risen Lord changed him. The Spirit of the Risen Christ is changing the world, and he asks them to help change the world from our worship of reward and punishment to claiming love as the fall back position of life. For followers of Jesus, it is not about the striving for rewards and avoidance of punishments after we are dead, but about continuing the redemption of the world.

Jesus understood that forgiveness is not granted as a reward for proper behavior, but forgiveness is a gift given by the one who was hurt to all, even the undeserving, so the one who was hurt doesn't have to keep carrying the hurt around but enters unburdened into a new kind of living.

Dorothy Day, a 20th Century Social Activist wrote about her life’s work serving the poor:

What we would like to do is change the world — make it a little simpler for people to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves as God intended them to do. And, by fighting for better conditions, by crying out unceasingly for the rights of the workers, the poor, of the destitute — the rights of the worthy and the unworthy poor, in other words — we can, to a certain extent, change the world; we can work for the oasis, the little cell of joy and peace in a harried world. We can throw our pebble in the pond and be confident that its ever-widening circle will reach around the world. We repeat, there is nothing we can do but love, and, dear God, please enlarge our hearts to love each other, to love our neighbor, to love our enemy as our friend.

What about those who refuse to accept the forgiveness so freely given? C. S Lewis wrote in his, The Problem of Pain:

I willingly believe that the damned are, in one sense, successful, rebels to the end; that the doors of hell are locked on the inside . . . they enjoy forever the horrible freedom they have demanded, and are therefore self-enslaved: just as the blessed, forever submitting to obedience, become through all eternity more and more free. . . . In the long run the answer to all those who object to the doctrine of hell, is itself a question: ‘What are you asking God to do?’ To wipe out their past sins and, at all costs, to give them a fresh start, smoothing every difficulty and offering every miraculous help? But He has done so, on Calvary. To forgive them? They will not be (accept being)forgiven. To leave them alone? Alas, I am afraid that is what he does.

Thomas Merton, a Monk at Gethsemane Abbey outside Louisville, Kentucky, one of God's beloved sheep, a truly Holy man, not a goat in any way shape or form, except in his own opinion, was running around doing errands, in downtown Louisville on the corner of 4^th and Walnut, in the middle of all those human beings, probably more goats than sheep, when God gave him a vision:

In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness… This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud… I have the immense joy of being (hu)man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.

Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed. . . . But this cannot be seen, only believed and ‘understood’ by a peculiar gift. (Confessions of a Guilty Bystander)

I was here at St. Andrew's for a few months before you got lucky with finding your new Rector. St. Andrew's is like every one of the churches with whom I have been honored to serve. I have never served a congregation of well behaved fear filled sheep. Every church had a healthy combination of sheep and goats who made me lovingly earn this old goat's stipend. It was the goats who made the places interesting. The sheep were a gift, and the goats were a gift, and both groups were in God's heaven on earth. Heaven is not a far off place after we die, but it is this sacred space from before the beginning of creation, in and between each of us, that we experience in each moment in this life to beyond death.

What About Us Goats?

We goats say, “Maaaa-n, I wouldn't have done it that way,

unlike you sheep keeping quiet afraid of being baaaaa-d,

you covet your lives safe, afraid of ending up being sad,

when we could come together to live heaven's space today.”

We all probably'll fail, running out of faith's oil,

some of us know our sins only much too well,

but we'll stop passing consignments to hell,

rather come to hope we're standing on Holy soil.

Saints and Sinners all crammed in, up together,

on this blue marble's time of rampant infection,

blessed sinners and forgiven saints in connection,

sheltering in safe place from the stormy weather.

Why waste time trying to get in above,

when all we are called to do, is love.

MAMITA: a Poem/Reflection for All Saints Sunday 2020

The Gospel lesson for All Saints Sunday is the Beatitudes from Matthew's remembrance of the Sermon on the Mount, about how people find blessings in this world. I was thinking about my grandfather and how he found blessings taking care of my grandmother. She was a difficult woman, presenting a fragile persona. She had a breakdown while attending Mount Holyoke and returned to the home in Western Pennsylvania to recover.  She met my grandfather at a small local college and  he devoted his life to taking care of her and others. 

He had grown up on a farm and his father during the 1880's and 90's kept leaving to go to Gold fields to "strike it rich" in the Yukon,  Arizona, and other locations, leaving his wife and kids behind to take care of the farm. He never struck it rich, but would return for a couple of years and father yet another child before the next strike was made public and he would rush out. All the children did well, but never felt the need to get rich but were raised by their mother with the idea that they had a responsibility to care for others. They all left the farm and had successful professional lives but success was never measured by how much money they made but about the caring for others, even difficult people.

MAMITA

Mother's mother displayed airs of a delicate flower,

with thorns, preparing to prick ripping disapproval,

if we failed to meet her needs of attending approval;

shimmering weakness underlying source of power.

“Mamita” was what we were instructed to call her ,

a diminutive name, implying that she was adored,

while fearful she's walking on a Swiss cheese floor,

which she'd fall through holes should mishap occur.

We were to be careful, as my mother and her father

taught over decades, if life upset her in any way;

resentment, by us, wasn't allowed to imply or say.

When she died, I dreamed relief for my grandfather.

But he did not, for her care was his silken glove;

needing to be needed, was how we show love.

Friends

Friends

Learning, weak by week, friends aren't nouns,

that just sort of sit there and take up space,

but they are verbs, running in our life's race,

with us everywhere we go as love abounds.

We have found what when things get harried,

it is by their acts of simple generous kindness,

that our fogs of self pity lift over our messes,

after being treated with O'Briening, Gualtieried,

and bouts of Tuckering, Joe and May Louing,

Tom and Bething, Nick and Dawning, Wayned,

and treats of Tessed, Sadlering, Browned, Muaed,

Brehonying; all fine fabrics of connection glueing.

Don't have enough lines for all the names reporting

as our verbs, but we'll be to others verbs supporting.