Splashing Out Of The Womb

Reflection for 1st Sunday after the Epiphany Grace, Plymouth, and St. Luke/St. Anne, Roper, NC January 12, 2025 Thomas Wilson, Guest Celebrant Isaiah 43:1-7 Acts 8:14-17 Luke 3:15-17, 21-22 Psalm 29 Splashing Out of the Womb Most of us in the room have had the same first impression of life when we were born; the water breaks over us and we came splashing out of the womb and had to adjust to being thrust into and to seeing a whole different world. If I had been paying better attention, I could better describe was it was like for me in that hospital in St. Louis, Missouri 78 years, and a little less than a month ago. The closest I am reminded is of the words of William Butler Yeats in his poem Easter 1916, when he tried to capture the breath taking wonder of Irish Freedom from the British and the horror attending the time of struggle locked in the heart, and the times of plain stupidity that each nation will have woven into even the moments of high ideals; “All is changed, changed utterly/ A terrible beauty is born.” To be born is to enter into being fully human, one way or another, splashing out of the womb. Last month we celebrated Jesus splashing out of the womb of Mary, his mother, in a the stall of a stable in Bethlehem because there was no room for this refugee family in the inn. Yet Kings came from far off lands to kneel before him in that place. At the same time, the forces of evil were gathering to try to destroy this child's message of peace on earth good will to all, but “All is changed, changed utterly/ A terrible beauty is born.” In today's Gospel lesson, Jesus comes out of East Nowhere Nazareth, walking to make a call on his cousin John down by the Jordan and a good guess is about 60 miles distance. When I go to the Y in the mornings, I get on an Elliptical and it takes me about a half an hour to cover two miles; it would take me about 30 hours to cover the distance that Jesus is walking, but between Nazareth and the Jordan is not a smooth flat walk. Lets assume he is in great shape, he is about 30, and he doesn't stop to talk with people, or to have meals with travelers, which from what we think we know about Jesus, seems highly unlikely; he can do it in three days. He makes this trip because he is called to follow a destiny. If he had stayed in Nazareth, he would have been a busy carpenter, because there were Roman dominated cities, especially three miles away, Sepphoris, a thriving center of Herod Antipas's rule. Father and son could have made a very good living. But Jesus was leaving that all behind him, because his spirit was calling him to leave. “All is changed, changed utterly/ A terrible beauty is born.” This is an important trip for him as he tries to figure out what is his meaning in life. His name was Jesus, which is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Yeshua ,which is Joshua in English. Joshua had come to the River Jordan and according to the Bible, the Priests under Joshua leads the ark into the River and the waters part and the Ark of the Covenant crosses the River without getting wet. Jesus enters into the water, the blessed water of the Jordan which marks the boundary of the Promised Land. Except this time, Jesus gets sopping wet. He comes, not as his namesake as a powerful conqueror but as a soggy, splashing supplicant. “All is changed, changed utterly/ A terrible beauty is born.” Joshua came to destroy the hated cities of the enemies. Jesus comes to bring love to the homes of his enemies. He comes with a faith that all will be redeemed, even death itself. He walks into his fate trusting the words of the Prophet Isaiah in the first lesson for today: “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;” Maybe, as he goes under the waters, is he strengthened when he remembers what the Psalmist sang that he is not alone; ”The voice of the Lord is upon the waters;the God of glory thunders; * the Lord is upon the mighty waters.“ All is changed, changed utterly/ A terrible beauty is born.” I remember a day over a half a century ago. I was waiting in the hospital. My wife had just delivered a baby and I was waiting to see her. A Nurse came by and saw my name tag and asked if I wanted to see my daughter. I looked in the basket and I fell in love. She was a mess, because she had just come splashing out of the womb; and nobody looks good after that experience. I went back to see my wife and I lied and said that the baby was beautiful. In a few minutes, another nurse brought the baby to my wife's room and my daughter was all cleaned up and now she was physically beautiful. “All is changed, changed utterly/ A terrible beauty is born.” My daughter is my child and she inherited a lot of my good, and not so good, traits. Her children , my grandsons, are almost all grown up, one has graduated from college and the other is a Junior at another college. Some of my most desirable, and some of my less desirable of the Wilson traits, are part of their DNAs as well. And every time I see them, I reflect: “All is changed, changed utterly/ A terrible beauty is born.” This last week, I attended the church that Tommy, the young man who had ministered with you so faithfully was honored for his faithful service as the Associate Rector of that church. He had been chosen to be the new Rector, the fourth Rector of the church that I had served for as the second Rector for about a decade and a half. I did not want to leave but I was reaching the mandatory retirement age of a Rector. I poured my heart into that church and I loved the time there. They had a problem with someone to fill an opening and asked me if I was available to do the Christmas Eve and Christmas Day services. I jumped at the chance, loving every minute of it . This Sunday is his first Sunday as Rector, it will be the Splashing Out of the Womb for him as their new Rector; and my fervent hope is that they will love him so much that they will never be tempted to compare him to me. “All is changed, changed utterly/ A terrible beauty is being born.” What is happening with you? Life is not static. What had changed? What is changing? What terrible beauty is in the process of being born for, and in, you?

Living Together

Reflection for the First Sunday of Christmas                         Thomas E Wilson, Guest Celebrant Grace Church, Plymouth, St Marks/St. Anne, Roper December 28, 2024 Living Together Isaiah 61:10-62:3  Galatians 3:23-25; 4:4-7      John 1:1-18 Psalm 147:13-21 Today, the 5th Sunday of the month, it is your habit to gather the two churches together and we have a meal together as an outward and visible sign to yourselves and others that there is a deeper connection than just being Episcopal churches in the same part of the state. While most of the services these churches do are held in the respective churches, you get along well, in spite of the fact there is often a spirit of competition in Episcopal churches. Every place I have lived in my life there are Episcopal churches in driving distance from each other. We Episcopalians get used to going to one church , and when we feel just like trying out something different we might visit another venue, but our heart  stays in the church of our family.  However, you on the 5th Sunday of the month acknowledge that there is a deeper connection rather than  a competition.  You have agreed to live together, to see yourselves, and that is important as a sign of a “deeper reality”;  what, to use a phrase from a Christmas sermon by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King called “an inescapable network of mutuality”. Dr. King said in that Sermon:  “It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. We are made to live together because of the interrelated structure of reality.”  In the Hebrew Testament lesson for today the Prophet Isiaiah is welcoming  the people who have been in exile back into a deeper relationship with God and God’s people. The purpose is not a return to the past but a new beginning of what King called that; “inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny.” I have been really hit with that concept of how we are all tied into a single garment. Before Christmas this year, I got a visit from Scott, one of my nephew’s and his family. Scott, his son and I all share the same middle name of my Grandfather Wilson’s first name, Everitt.They came up from Florida to visit me in Nags Head, and  then drove over to visit my sister in Wilmington, and their cousins in Chapel Hill, and  went sledding in the Mountains with his brother Mike and his family, then back to visit  my younger brother and his daughter in Florida, then his mother and sister in another part of Florida. Hundreds of miles driven with the desire to connect with family; that “inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny.” As I was writing this reflection on the day after Christmas, I was thinking about my daughter and I called her to tell her that I loved her. She is 55 years old with a great husband and two wonderful grown up sons aged 23 and 21; but she is still my baby that I held in my arms after we brought her home from the hospital where she was born, more than a half century ago.  I embarrass her when I remind her that she will always be my baby, but she admits she is swamped  with emotion when the oldest son who has moved out of the house to be on his own after he graduated for college last year, said that next year he wants to take some of his ornaments to put on his own tree.  Distance may give us an illusion that we are separated but  in that “inescapable network of mutuality.tied into a single garment of mutuality.” On the 22th of this month you hosted the Rev. Tommy Drake as your celebrant; he had been with you for years before he went to Nags Head. That is where I met him as I started to attend the church in which he was the Associate Rector. I grew fond of him. Then, this month he was called to be the 4th Rector of All Saints Parish, the church in Southern Shores, where I had served as Rector as the 2nd Rector for 15 years before I reached the mandatory retirement age of 72.  I was called back to that church last week to fill in as Preacher in the Christmas Eve services and the Celebrant and Preacher of the Christmas Day service. Three points in the conversation with parishioners was (1) how they were fond of me, Tom, as their old historic Rector,  and (2) how much they missed my wife who had died a year and a half ago, and (3) how much they were thrilled that Tommy was coming to be their new Rector. In my sermon in the  Christmas Eve services, I thanked the congregation on how they loved my wife and made her and I feel welcome to join them in the interrelated structure of reality of that church and urged them to love Tommy and his spouse as deeply as they loved us. If I had been bright enough to look ahead to this week I would have used the phrase; “the inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny.” An important part of the work of the church is outside the boundaries of the church buildings and engage in the work outside of church walls as Dr. King urged us to do work and “to live together because of the interrelated structure of reality.”  This work is with and for the people to whom we are not related or even fellow parishioners, but people, neighbors and strangers, who need to be loved and encouraged and prayed with and for. May your hearts be open to help to identify these people to be with you in this“inescapable network of mutuality.” Living Together Words spoken decades before, echo again, but now in different circumstances calling Justice to flow down over us when falling asleep, no longer noticing neighbor's pain. The new voices of those renewed prophets, echo those voices heard centuries before, warning to no longer forget days of yore when we most longed to see higher profits. Can we have new Isaiahs awakening calls to see the space between us as sacred soil and everyone's labor as God blessed toil, when we're working to tear down walls. Knowing that we are all tied together with those destiny garments forever.

Christmas Day 2024

A Reflection and Poem for Christmas Day                               All Saints , Southern Shores, NC

December 25, 2024                                                                   Thomas E Wilson; Guest Preacher

Isaiah 9:2-7                Titus 2:11-14                 Luke 2:1-20                     Psalm 96

Christmas Day 2024

Fifteen days ago, I finished writing the reflection I gave last night and delivered it to the office with the bulletin. I don't usually write so far ahead, but I was getting ready to go visit my daughter, her husband and my two grown up grandsons in Colorado and I did not know how much time I would have after I got back to the Outer Banks.. The times I have with my daughter so far away and, my now all grown up, grandsons are so precious that I did not want to have any church work to get in my way.

Well, so much for plans! I had to cancel my trip to Colorado when Yoda, the Wonder Dog, got awfully sick and I had to take him to the Vet, instead of dropping him off at the Kennel. It is not that I love my grandsons less; it is about being a responsible person to the dog Pat and I found at the shelter to help heal some of the pain we had when the dog we had died. Long time members of this church will remember that both of these dogs used to sleep during the sermon, and before and after, try to find the snacks that parishioners smuggled in to slip to them. I had to cancel my trip to be a good parent to my dog, and will put off my trip until June when both of the boys will be at home. It is what the Letter to Titus urges us to do: “and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds.”

The family is not all that big into religion, but I will not be there to convert them; I will be there to love them. Love is more important than views about theology. I think of lines written by 19^th century poet, Emily Dickinson whose school put on a full court press to get her to be an evangelical. She resisted their bullying and went deeper into her soul by writing about what it is to love deeply, instead of bargaining for approval. Love is a gift not a commodity over which we bargain.

            There is a solitude of space

            A solitude of sea

A solitude of death, but these

Society shall be

Compared with that profounder site

That polar privacy

A soul admitted to itself —

Finite infinity."

Ministry is not about prancing around an altar; but about opening our human lives to the presence of the Holy in every moment of our lives, like Dickinson's “Finite infinity”; a living in the dynamic tension of the finite human life and dwelling within the infinite of Holy Love. This Jesus that we remember being born into human life is the entering of the infinite of God into the finite of humanity. We who follow Jesus, fully human that we are, are also touched with the infinite as death is no longer the end, but the passage into a new life.

Years ago, when I was in college, before changing my major a couple times, I was a drama major and one thing I was in was a performance of the Second Shepherd's Play, in the style of the Medieval Mystery Plays I was an actor and I knew how to play roles. I was good at it. I could play a person who is spiritual, but after awhile reality creeps in, and we have to step off the stage. For people serious about having a spiritual life it is not about convincing other people, but to go deeper into all the time off the stage, or away from the Altar. It is about the time where there are no lines to recite, but there are questions each soul must answer.

Henri Nouwen wrote a series of daily questions for us regular dog faced people

“Did I offer peace today?

Did I bring a smile to someone's face?

Did I say words of healing?

Did I let go of my anger and resentment?

Did I forgive?

Did I love?

These are the real questions. I must trust that the little bit of love that I sow now will bear many fruits, here in this world and the life to come.”

These are the questions I decided to ask myself every evening before I would go to bed each day of my visit. I didn't intend to quiz anybody in the family and give them a grade on the test. For myself, while I, in all modesty, am a grade A Priest, but, at a lot more times times than I want to acknowledge, only a grade C- person. I need Nouwen's direction into the daily spiritual check in.

“Did I offer peace today?

Did I bring a smile to someone's face?

Did I say words of healing?

Did I let go of my anger and resentment?

Did I forgive?

Did I love?

Also as I was writing this reflection I read in the paper that Nikki Giovanni, Poet, had died and I thought of her lines from her poem Laws of Motion:

Man we are told is the only animal who   

smiles with his lips. The eyes however are the mirror of

the soul

The problem with love is not what we feel but what we   

wish we felt when we began to feel we should feel

something. Just as publicity is not production: seduction

is not seductive.

One of the dangers with doing Christmas Services is that we might be tempted to enter the past and not the present. We are tempted to remember all the times we did Christmas services in the past with people who no longer walk on this earth. We are tempted to complain that we do not have the present of the presence of people with whom we shared so many Christmases before. However, we who follow Jesus, fully human that we are, are also touched with the infinite as death is no longer the end, but the passage into a new life. Those who we miss seeing at the services, are with us still, in our hearts and hopes. We will meet again on another shore.

This afternoon, I will be a guest with a family that has lost some people who were loved by them and by me. We will miss seeing them, but will be with us in every breath we take and every laugh we make./

Christmas Day 2024

Now, just a shepherd without a flock

still called to try to touch a mystery,

in present moments, not just history,

wherever our feet take us for a walk.

Like the Gospel Shepherds' answer,

to that call of those angels' songs,

disrupts what an old routine longs,

so that faith will have an enhancer.

White candles were lit last night,

and wax drops hit the holy floor

as we tried to respond to do more

to say there is given a new light.

Today, we'll open a few presents,

as outward signs of Holy presence.

All Saints Christmas Eve Gifts

Reflection for Christmas Eve 2024                               All Saints Episcopal, Southern Shores, N.C.

December 24, 2024                                                      Thomas E Wilson, Guest Preacher

Isaiah 9:2-7                 Titus 3:4-7                     Luke 2: 1-14

All Saints Christmas Eve Gifts

This is Christmas Eve, this day we remember the Christ Gift being given. Madeleine L'Engle wrote about that gift;

Was there a moment, known only to God, when all the stars held their breath, when the galaxies paused in their dance for a fraction of a second, and the Word, who had called it all into being, went with all his love into the womb of a young girl, and the universe started to breathe again, and the ancient harmonies resumed their song, and the angels clapped their hands for joy?“

Today is a day we remember and cherish the gifts we have been given in our lives and look forward to tomorrow when we claim the gifts that are already in out hearts to give to others. It depends on if we can really receive the divine gifts in the manner in which they were given, or sing with the ancient harmonies and clap our hands for joy with the angels.

Thank you for having me here on Christmas Eve. I cannot think of Christmas without remembering what it was like when Pat and I were on Sabbatical studying at St. George's College in Jerusalem almost 30 years ago when there was more of a lull in the tension between Jews and Arabs, Hamas and Israel. One day the class we were in about 20+ clergy types and some assorted spouses took a trip to Bethlehem, and as we arrived in the evening there was a great light shining over the city. The light was for the Il Bambino Gift Shop sign where could buy thousands of souvenirs made in Manger Square of Bethlehem, or China, or the Philippines, or in Italy, or wherever, we could take home for souvenirs or help in deepening faith or as gifts to give to friends back home. Across from the square from the shop is the Church of the Nativity, where centuries after the birth of Christ, we visited an Undercroft of a church in Bethlehem where it was claimed was THE place where the Baby Jesus was born. In my western mindset, my first impression was that it was so cluttered and garish with centuries of devotion, that it was hard to see the lowly stable that it was meant to call to mind. But, off to one side. I saw a Palestinian father and his son, where this father was showing his very young son how to pray. Gently holding his son's hands together, the father was teaching his son the outward stance of prayer, and by example the inward attitude of prayer, and the lesson that we never pray alone in the sight of the Holy, as the words to say that had been passed on for centuries in the presence of that which is beyond words.

All over the world, at this moment, or in this day, there are people taking time to stop and pray, in different languages, in different styles of Prayer, all asking that Holy will stop to listen to what is behind the words, and inside the meditations of their hearts. There are people who will disagree with us in politics, in economics, in theologies, and religious practices; but the Holy listens to each and every one of them. As medieval theologian, St. Thomas Aquinas in his Summa reminded us: “Whatever is received is received in the manner of the receiver.” Looking at that son and father, I realized that I had to change to be open to the Holy that was there in the space between this father and his son, and was also in the space between Pat and I as we had traveled half way around the earth to go deeper in faith.

On this Christmas Eve, I am reminded of the time, a couple decades ago, when Pat and I, in another pilgrimage, moved 600 some miles from a church in Georgia to this church in Southern Shores. Pat was carrying some wounds which she had received being the wife of a particular Pastor in a particular place and she was coming here for healing. And, this is the place where she found a community that cared for her. And she blossomed here. Your gifts to her was a gift to my soul and the courage to take deeper steps into faith.

She got a gift from being in the choir. For years, when we visited other churches in different places around the world, where she had to sing next to me as I was droning on and she learned how to hold her own in order to sing somewhat on tune. Here, in this church, she loved how Steve worked with every member of the choir, lovingly, patiently, helping them to learn how to sing together.; many voices becoming one deeper, complex sound. For Steve it wasn't a matter of a Hobson's Choice, of take or leave it, but gentle invitations to work together for something greater than one's self. Thank you for that gift, of Steve and the choir. Thank you for your tolerance of my singing with gusto, if not by skill.

She got a gift from being on the Altar Guild, where careful preparing the place for worship, was part of a preparation of herself for her own worship in community with others. When I was in Seminary, I did a yearly Rota of being on the Altar Guild at the Seminary Chapel. I learned what needed to be done, and as some of my Professors who were celebrants at Seminary Communion services, I was aware that mistakes made by me, a mere student, would be noted as a sign that I wasn't taking worship seriously. Since graduation, in the decades of my being a Celebrant at altar many, I depended on the Altar Guild for never having to worry about things being where they were supposed to be. Thank you for that gift of an Altar Guild, and a congregation, I could always count on.

Soon after we got here, Mary Mason and Pat got together and cornered me that we do a Church Bazaar here. That idea just froze my soul. I had been a Rector of a church that did a yearly church Bazaar and how I dreaded it. I asked Pat, did she not remember those days? The competition between vendors who were fighting for the best spaces, or who got the better trash and treasures or who kept tasting the soup and adding more salt on the sly. I could think of nothing worse. At that church when we added a new addition, there was now more space to squabble over. Yet, there was something happening here that changed, the people had fun and no one more than Pat. Thank you for that gift of a church having fun together, instead of trying to be God's frozen chosen.

My greatest honor was in being able to be with people who were going through joys, changes and challenges in your lives. I did not always fix everything, but I was honored by that trust. Thank you for the gift of allowing me into your lives of faith.

You are in the process of opening your hearts to having Tommy as your a new Rector. I have known him for several years and am impressed with his heart as he was the associate at the church I was attending on a somewhat regular basis. I also have done some fill in work at churches where he used to minister with and to. They had nothing but joy to remember how helpful he had been to these small churches. I am happy that you have been given an opportunity to have a fresh start. My prayer is that you will treat him, and his partner, as a gift, and they will also see you as a gift from the loving God.

All Saints Christmas Eve Gifts

It'd be nice to live in the moment,

but what about times of the past,

when memories were first cast,

and bound into life's enrollment?

They do come for us to cherish,

honoring for making our hearts,

filled by gratitude for the parts,

that'll never be allowed to perish.

These times for us to give thanks,

grabbing the chances for moments,

risking forgiving of our opponents,

from afar and those on our Outer Banks.

God grant us all of the gifts to cherish,

we've received, or given, in this parish.

Face To Face

 

A Reflection for the 1^st Sunday of Advent                St.Anne's- St. Mark's, Roper Grace, Plymouth

December 1, 2024                                                     Thomas E Wilson, Guest Celebrant

Face To Face

Jeremiah 33:14-16     1 Thessalonians 3:9-13      Luke 21:25-36         Psalm 25:1-9

Happy New Year!!

I know it is not January 1^st. but this is first Sunday of Advent, the beginning of the church's year. We can blame this on the Council of Nicaea, called by the Roman ruler, Constantine, a soldier first and foremost, who wanted order in the unruly church he wanted to head up. He wanted his people to set up a Church year that would be able to blend the Christian and Pagan calendars, to mesh together throughout the Empire. The accepted idea was to downplay Jesus' Jewish roots and play to the calendar of the pagan Romans to make the transition easier for the Pagans. Constantine looked at the mess where Christmas and Easter were set up at different times in different parts of the Empire. Constantine had the delegates at Nicaea railroad a Creed and Calendar for the Empire and the church, and that is what we have handed down to us.

The official state holidays remained the same but they were now based on Christian time tables. Christmas was when Jesus was born nine months after the Spring or Vernal Equinox, and it replaced the old Pagan Festival day. New Years day was based on the old Roman New Year dedicated to the pagan God, Janus, the God of beginnings and it was Christianized as the Circumcision of Jesus, the first time his blood was shed, six days after he was born. Easter was the 1^st Sunday after the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox. The Holidays remained the same except the names were changed and Christianized. Christianity began to evolve into a religious facade, like all the other religions, instead of being a whole different way of coming face to face with with the living God in our daily life with our neighbors and ourselves. The lessons for today call us back to being face to face.

From Paul's First Letter to the Church in Thessaloniki, he says a prayer that there will be a New Year:: “Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you face to face and restore whatever is lacking in your faith.” He is praying that, “This time we will get it right!”

From the prophet Jeremiah's book, the writer relates seeing face to face with the will of God that as the people return from exile, that this time they will execute justice and righteousness instead of following their own narrow political and economic agendas. It is a good New Year's hope that this time the people, you and I, will chose to do justice and mercy. “This time we will get it right!”

The Psalmist sings of the need that we have of strengthening help; “Remember not the sins of my youth and my transgressions; * remember me according to your love and for the sake of your goodness, O Lord”. Help us to be able to be face to face with the will of God instead of chasing our own narrow agendas. “This time we can do it right!”

In the Gospel, Jesus is warning his disciples that the in the coming times, they, and you and I, will need, face to face, a strength greater than ourselves to make it through this time, in order to get it right.

I remember when I graduated from Seminary and I was not at all that sure that I could survive. It was at that time I met Pat, who would later help me find strength. But, I first met her when I went to a meeting in the new diocese and I saw her at that meeting. She was standing with a bunch of annoyed women with scowls, who were all wearing an almost uniform of large coats and long scarves, and smoking little black cigarettes. I looked at them and thought, “God deliver me from angry women.”

She came up to me, the new guy on the block, to complain that her son had stopped going to the Episcopal Church in the University town in which I was just called to be a Chaplain and Assistant Rector. All I could think was that her son was trying to find his new life away from home. I understood in my life when I went off to college, I just did not want to do any religious bit. I wanted to tell her that our children need to make their own decisions as adults. She cut me off before I got through the first sentence. She did not want a discussion; she wanted me to look him up and face to face, get him back into the fold of the Episcopal Church. That was my job!

We were standing next to each other, but we were not seeing face to face, but from facade to facade; I in my clergy suit and she in her angry woman uniform. She worked for the Diocese and it took years before we were able to go beyond facades to facades, to face to face. When we stopped looking at the convenient facades and looked deeper, seeing each other as complex broken people who cared deeply for other people. We learned how to care for each other, face to face. She helped make me a better Priest and Pastor in the churches we served together. Face to face changes every thing.

One of the drawbacks to me being a visiting fireman, jumping between two churches on Sunday mornings, two or three times a month is that, and while you have been very gracious to me; we do not take the time to spend to really know each other. I am sorry for the reality of our schedules, but we need to do what we can to see each other face to face, if that is your desire. You are kind and listen to me when I am here; I would like to listen to you with what St. Benedict called, “listening with the ear of our heart.” and have you share how you see or hear the Holy in your life. This time we will get it right!

I want to end with a beginning of a prayer by the Rev. Dr. Randley Woodley, that I read on a Thanksgiving day blog:

“Great Mystery,   I am humbled that I will never know everything about you, but I am grateful that through the lives of the other I can know more of you. While I thank you for those who are like me, I especially thank you for those who are different than me.”

Face To Face

There is a Holy space between us,

wherein the Sacred One dwells,

listening without church bells,

when a word “God” isn't a cuss,

but a lover's whispered address,

to a one who's beyond knowing,

unbound by categories showing,

yet, helping each of us to bless,

those who care, or who busy don't,

because we've all this work to do,

in keeping up with all what's new,

but especially the ones who won't.

The Holy is between you and me

shaping “you” into a Holy “Thee.”

Beginnings of Birth Pangs

 

A Reflection for the 26^th Sunday after Pentecost                          Thomas E Wilson, Guest Celebrant

St. Luke/St.Anne's Roper and Grace, Plymouth                            November 17, 2024

1 Samuel 1:4-20        1 Samuel 2:1-10       Hebrews 10:11-14 (15-18) 19-25           Mark 13:1-8

Beginnings of Birth Pangs

As I was looking through the lessons for today, I saw a theme of people living lives that they wanted to change, and yet and the same time feared, to change. What was seen with fear and loss of hope was transformed to be the beginnings of the birth pangs for something beyond imagination.

In the Hebrew Testament Lesson from Samuel, Elkanah was a Levite, a tribe that was given responsibility of being intercessors for God's people to God. Elkanah, makes a yearly pilgrimage to the shrine of Shiloh, with his two wives. His first wife, Peninnah, has given birth to children. But his favorite wife is Hannah, who has no children. On that pilgrimage, he sees her acting strangely and thinks she is under the influence of spirits of alcohol. However, she is under the influence of God's spirit in prayer with God, asking for a change in her life, to bring forth a child. God grants her that prayer and she gives birth to Samuel, the name could be something like “Borrowed from EL” El is the Hebrew word for God.. Thus the story continues that Hannah will wean Samuel, a gift from God, and then she will not give, but lend, Samuel, to God through the Priest Eli, who will raise up the child. Hannah will live with her husband and have three sons and two daughters and every year she and her family would come on pilgrimage to see her son whom she had loaned to God. For Hannah, what was seen as a lack of hope, turned into the beginnings of the birth pangs to a new life for her and the people of Israel.

Her son Samuel, the one borrowed from God, will be one who will preside over the birth pangs of a new Nation of Israel with Saul and later David as King.

Hannah sings the song,The Song of Hannah, a song where she gives thanks for the reversal of her life, from barren to full of blessings. The song will be an influence to the Virgin Mary who sings her Prayer, The Magnificat, whose life has changed from being a a woman who might be under the shame of being an unwed mother to being the Blessed Mother of Jesus. Biblical Scholar, Walter Brueggemann, suggests that the Song of Hannah paves the way for a major theme of the book of Samuel, the "power and willingness of Yahweh to intrude, intervene and invert." To change life from what seems like a failure and allow it to be transformed into a life of joy; a life following what became birth pangs of a new life..

Before I went to seminary, one of the things I used to do was to work with people who had been addicted to substances and they came to a decision that they could no longer live as an addict. They knew what the past looked like, but now they had to leave that behind and enter into a new way of living. My job was to help them see that they were not alone in facing a new unknown. They came to realize that sheer will power was not enough, and they would need a power greater than themselves to make it into wholeness. Almost every thing in their lives is going to change. If they have a job; the eight hour job tasks may remain the same, but the spaces between each moment of those eight hours needs to be seen in a new light in how they deal with those hours, which can now be filled - rather than killed. Their lives begin to have meaning. They will go through new birth pangs; bringing forth a new life in place of the old.

The writer of the Book of Hebrews echos this promise of strength given to people in difficulty, and reminds them that the waiting for the return of Jesus, will need to be seen as living into daily birth pangs into a deeper faith.

“Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching. “

In the Gospel story, Jesus and disciples are wandering through the magnificent Temple of Solomon which had rebuilt and then expanded and all dolled up by the Tyrant Herod the Great, the King who wanted to kill the child the Wise Men sought to worship. The disciples are really impressed. The death of Jesus in 33AD, put to death by the Romans, will be the beginning of the end for the Temple which is destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD, 27 years later. But Jesus sees into the future where that splendid temple will be turned into rubble, but that failure will be the new birth pangs beginning of leading into the new life of following the Risen Lord.

“When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.”

In my life, I went off to college and majored in Drama so I would be a professional actor. I loved the idea of immersing myself in the lives of characters which were parts of my own psyche. Then a couple years into my four years as an undergraduate, that dream became uninviting as I saw a need in people's lives. So, instead of heading off to New York to be a legendary actor, I graduated and got married and later we had a child, the birth pangs of being a parent. I think of that often when I realize that we do not own our children, we are only loaned them, to bring them up and pray for the best.

My mission in my working life was in the birth pangs of a life of helping others, I started working as a counselor with school drop outs, then a therapist with people, then a college professor teaching people how to work with people, then I went to seminary to help people find the strength if God's love in their lives within a Parish of faith. Now I am retired and when my wife died, I thought that it was the end of my life. It was. I mourned and then asked for signs how my life might find meaning. Looking for the new Birth pangs.

Next month, I will turn 78 years old and I still don't know what I am going to do when I grow up! I am still in the waiting for the birth pangs; of the next part of my life. I don't know what these birth pangs will look, or feel like. But, every day I end my prayers with two special prayers. The first is using the words of St. Francis, found in the back of our Prayer Book:

Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we
are born to eternal life. Amen.

Then I use my loose translation of Henri-Frédéric Amiel, a Swiss 19^th Century Moral Philosopher, Teacher, and Poet, to show me a way I can help live into my faith.

“Life is short and we do not have much time to gladden the hearts of those who travel with us. So be swift to love and make haste to be kind.

Today, this Sunday can be just the same old, same old life you had yesterday. OR it could be the beginning of birth pangs into a new life. A new life where you are not the center of your universe.

Beginnings of Birth Pangs

My first appearance as a discomfort,

was tolerated by my mother awhile

But then at birth, I gave a big wail,

she whispered sounds of comfort.

When my wife informs me of a birth.

to be expected in the months to come,

I alternated between wanting to run,

or giving support for all I was worth.

I was clumsy, figuring how to dad,

after years of my being for myself,

there was no easy book on the shelf,

yet I learned how to be a loving dad.

It wasn't perfect, I made mistakes,

but I learned loving was what it takes.

Wherever you will be, I will be

A Reflection for the Sunday after All Saints                    St Anne's/ St.Luke's, Roper and Grace, Plymouth

November 3, 2024                                                          Thomas E Wilson, Guest Preacher and Celebrant

Ruth 1:1-18      Psalm 146                   Hebrews 9:11-14                 Mark 12:28-34

“Wherever you will be, I will be.”

In the Hebrew Testament lesson for today is the story of Ruth. Ruth is a woman of Moab who married the son of Naomi, a Hebrew woman, who moved with her husband and sons into the country of Moab during a time of famine in Israel. The two sons marry local woman in Moab, but then the father and the sons die and Naomi is left alone in the land in which she is not a native. She is vulnerable, there is no one to protect her. Naomi hears that the famine in Israel is over and she plans to return in hope that she can join with distant relatives. Knowing the Jewish prejudice against people of Moab, she tries to send her daughters in law away to find some Moabite husbands. However, Ruth out of love and concern for her mother-in-law, affirms that wherever Naomi goes, Ruth will go. She says “Wherever you will be, I will be.”

This week after All Saints Day, I saw an ad on line for a 8” by 11” Collage of 36 Icons of Saints, for All Saints Day 2024, and in the center of the bottom row was an Icon of Ruth and Naomi together, united in love. Ruth who offers to be with Naomi, and Naomi who brings Ruth into her heart. One who loves and the other who allows herself to be loved and returns it. That is one of the themes of the lessons for today when people love and allow themselves to be loved. It is like all relationships of freely sharing love. One for the Other, risking love for each other, “Wherever you will be, I will be.”

When my wife and I got married 35 years ago, we bought a couple of wedding rings which had the Hebrew letters written on the bands proclaiming the promise of Ruth to each other; “Wherever you will be, I will be.” She had been married before, and in her first marriage, her husband a medical doctor, had been drafted and they spent the first couple years on an army base in Texas. She wanted to get the inside of the ring to be inscribed with “Anywhere but Texas”. But she came with me to Lynchburg, Virginia, and Macon, Georgia, and helping me working on my doctorate in Sewanee, Tennessee, and to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. But the promise was more than geography; it was a promise to be together in good times as well as bad times. Since the 23^rd of June, 2023, when her physical body died, she still lives in my heart. Bodies die, but love can live forever. As Ruth said, “Wherever you will be, I will be.”

My father died when I was 19, but there has not been a day when Bill Wilson has not lived inside me, in how I see, and treat my neighbors. We disagreed on many things, like music, religion and politics; but how you treat your neighbor was not one of those disagreements. In the winter of my 4^th grade, we were living in Upstate New York and then one day the first snow came down. There was no question that my older brother and I were expected to shovel the drive way and walk. But my father sent us out to first shovel the driveway and walk of our next door neighbors, Mr. and Mrs Lyon, Walter and Millie. He had been the managing editor of the Binghamton Sun-Bulletin morning newspaper, since 1920, and was retired. They were an elderly couple, they were in their 70's. younger than I am now. who had been so kind to us when we moved in that summer. She was so gracious and they both told marvelous stories. If I live another year, I will be as old as he was when he died. We were instructed to do it quietly, without being asked, and to not expect, or accept. any money. These were our neighbors; and that is what neighbors do- help one another, out of love. “Wherever you will be, I will be.”

My father was a lapsed Roman Catholic who married a Presbyterian girl, so they split the difference and the children were raised as Episcopalians, He had a hard time believing in religious doctrines about God, after battling in the South Pacific as a Marine in World War II; but he believed in the ethic of faith, which he saw was in kindness to your neighbor. The church taught me religion, my parents taught me faith. The church told me that as a faithful Christian, I had to be ready to face to Lions in Roman Coliseums. My father taught me that I had an obligation to help Mr. and Mrs. Lyon next door. “Wherever you will be, I will be.”

The passage from the Book of the Letter to the Hebrews , which is not a letter but a polemic, and is not to the Hebrews but to Christians; but otherwise well named, is that this Jesus did not come to earth to do religious ceremonies but to give himself away for others and allowed himself to be vulnerable to be loved. I am pretty sure that Bill Wilson did not study the Book of Hebrews, but he lived it. “Wherever you will be, I will be.”

In the Gospel lesson for today, Jesus meets a scribe and tells him that he was holding the scribe in his heart. Now the scribe belongs to a separate political party than Jesus. Yet Jesus says; “You are not far from the Kingdom of God.” The Gospel does not tell us what happened to that scribe, but I am persuaded that wherever that scribe went, he was in Jesus's prayers and love wherever the scribe physically went in his life. However many miles away he was, he was never far from the Kingdom of God. Jesus knew how to love and be loved. Jesus loved Judas, and Judas betrayed him. Judas said: “The one I kiss, is the man you need to arrest.” The reality is that you can only be betrayed by someone who you love and who loves you. “Wherever you will be, I will be.”

One of the things I have seen in your churches is that when you hold people in the congregations in your heart. But more than that, your hearts expanded beyond the building. Your hearts expanded to be present with the people of Western North Carolina going through such devastation: you were with them in the Kingdom of God. You went out of your way when you understood that you were not the center of the universe. You understood that saying a prayer of thanksgiving for being spared from the Hurricane was not enough. You understood that you were spared not from, but for. You understood, that while you might throw a party, but you understood that the purpose of the party that was you were to help these neighbors hundreds of miles away. You understood the words of Ruth, “Wherever you will be, I will be.”

This coming week, on Tuesday, election day, we have a chance for moments when we will not all agree and there will be a least two different camps of partisans. One camp will win and the other will lose, but we do have a greater duty if we are to have a democracy we must have respect and love our political adversaries. We do not have to agree, we don't need to even like, but we do have to love, even the people with whom we disagree. My prayer is that before the last vote is counted, it will be a chance to treat them and think, or say, to our opponents; “You are not far from the Kingdom of God.” “Wherever you will be, I will be.”

It is like going to church, where Christ is the guest of honor, but the purpose of the party is to try to get ready to help a neighbor. We pray for growth in faith, but the faith is lived out when we walk outside the church doors, when the echos of the organ song fades and then hear the cries of our neighbors come into our hearts and will. Our hands are not there to pat ourselves on the back but to reach out to meet the needs of our neighbors. As Ruth said, “Wherever you will be, I will be.”

“Wherever you will be, I will be.

There are people who continue living in memory,

They were there helping me grow up, and deeper,

Walking me with me as paths were getting steeper,

Sharing stories to be told from pulpits or refectory.

These are you people who showed me how to live,

Live as if each moment was meant to be savored,

With guests of loved friends meant to be favored.

Extra special twists we'd really would want to give.

Recalled as saints who didn't from their labors rest,

Tasted again as if it was wine from a vintage rare,

Treasured as if was always really meant to share,

Calls us to love fully with every second as the best.

Some went ahead, but soon I will join you,

And we will dance together as lovers true.