Friday, September 30, 2016

Uprooting Luke's Mulberry Tree


This coming Sunday (October 2, 2016) is the Annual Stewardship Kickoff Breakfast and there will not be a sermon but in its place I have a poem based on a reflection  of Gospel lesson for that Sunday;

Luke 17:5-10

The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!" The Lord replied, "If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, `Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it would obey you.
"Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, `Come here at once and take your place at the table'? Would you not rather say to him, `Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink'? Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, `We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!'"



Uprooting Luke’s Mulberry Trees (poem for 2 October)
If I only had enough faith.
    If I only had enough love.
        If I only had enough compassion.
        If I only had enough time.
    If I only had enough money.
I have what I have.
My reality is not a bunch of “ifs”
    I do what I do.
       Choice is my opportunity
       to provoke me from fear
   of making commitments
to spend the gifts I have,
to invest the care I will, and
   to live by joining myself
       to my deepest reality.

Thursday, September 22, 2016

Walking With Francis

A Reflection and Poem for the feast of St Francis (Transferred)   
All Saints Church  Southern Shores,
September 25, 2016                                                                       
Thomas E Wilson, Rector
Walking With Francis

From Matthew's Gospel reading for the feast of St. Francis Jesus says to us:“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”

I grew up with that verse in the King James Translation after the Confession of Sin before the communion  "Hear what comfortable words our Savior Christ saith unto all who truly turn to him. Come unto me, all ye that travail and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you."

That verse comes to me whenever I start tuning into my unconscious internal radio station of WFMC, standing for Whine Fuss Moan and Complain, and  I realize that I am throwing a pity party for all those things I have concern about and over which I don't seem to have any control. "Oh poor me" I would refrain, "I am all alone"

Funny thing about that plaintive whine is that I thought the Italian Song "O Sole Mio" was saying that kind of complaint; "Oh poor me" -but it is not. The song is about the sun shining after the rainstorm and a lover is singing to his beloved that "O Sole Mio"- "My own true sun" shines on her face. When I hear that song now I start to hear the refrain from Jesus- "come unto me and I will refresh you"- my sun will shine on you.

That understanding of God's love shining on his face happened to Francis. In the first half part of his life he, like all of us, was the center of his own universe. He was baptized as Giovanni after he was born in Assisi Italy, while his father, a cloth merchant, was in France selling cloth. It was such a successful selling trip that when he returned he started calling his son Giovanni, Francesco,which means "the Frenchman".

He father doted on him and gave him everything he wanted and then some. Francis was spoiled rotten, so Francis thought he was the center of the universe. The life of indolent pleasure grew old and Francis decided he wanted to win great glory as a soldier and begged his father to outfit him with armour as a soldier at great expense. His father could refuse him nothing. Well Francis, being self centered was no soldier and he was captured and held for ransom - a hefty ransom. His father paid and Francis came home to party with his friends.  After awhile the celebration got old and Francis wondered what the purpose of life was. One day he was wandering in the countryside and came across a ruined church. Francis had a vision of Jesus saying to him that Christ's church was in ruins. Since Francis was still narcissistic and self centered thought he was called to repair that particular church. Since he had no money he stole some of his father's cloth from the warehouse, selling it and repaired that church. He liked the way he felt being generous with someone else's money that he continued to make raids on the warehouse, selling the loot and giving it away for religious purposes. His father did an inventory and went ballistic. After beatings did no good, his father dragged him before the Bishop as a judge to get some repayment. Francis, still self centered announced that he needed nothing from his father and took off his clothes and started to walk away, as we say in the South, “stark nekked”. The bishop whipped off his own cloak to cover the defendant, then getting a robe for Francis, Francis marched off into a new life.

In that new life, he made a living as a traveling acrobat and beggar. What he found was that he needed very little and he gave away much of what he had earned and begged to the poor. Francis started to look out at the world over which he had no control ands saw everything as a blessing and he was intimately connected to all of creation. The sun was his brother, the moon his sister, his enemies were gifts to be loved. The birds of the air were fellow travelers in God's mercy and he would preach to them about how much God loved them; the same message he would share with the beasts of the field and anyone who would stop and listen.

Francis never became a Priest and as new friends joined him he formed an order who embraced three parts of a consecrated life. Poverty is the decision to focus on people not things; not to be so burdened down by things that one loses sight of the needs of the poor and the worth of God's creation. Chastity is not a repudiation of the gift of sex but to use the gift appropriately and respectfully to remain chaste in whatever state we are in, married or single. as we open ourselves up to love with all of God's people. Obedience was to follow God and not one's own selfish desires and wants.

The Franciscan order was called by Francis the The Order of Friars Minor, Friars meaning "Brothers" and Minor meaning a humility of self. Francis had a friend named Clare and she formed an order for women originally called the the Order of Poor Ladies but became know as Poor Clares. Francis either started or converted an order of Lay People who were married or for some other reason could not join the Friars  monastic life style.

Francis was called to bring the church back from ruins not by building building but by sharing a vision of love instead of power and possessions, of giving oneself in daily life rather than just attending religious activities, of caring for the poor instead ending care at our homes front doors, of  prayerful action rather than pious formulas.

Francis' vision has an Icon of Christ say ""Francis, Francis, go and repair My house which, as you can see, is falling into ruins."  Let me say to you today that the church is always in danger of ruin, not its buildings but its soul. THE call is still being made to us here in Southern Shores to work on rebuilding the House of God in our lives. We need to walk with Francis each day being instruments of God’s peace. Being connected in love and awe with all of God’s creation and feel the sun of God’s love shine on all of God’s children’s faces.

Walking With Francis (poem)
Today instead of sleep walking
I plan to be in awe, not leaving
to random chance but believing
that Grace will come knocking
saying, “Let me you astounding
things to show; see sister stars
with a brother asteroid of ours
born before heaven's founding.
Hear infant laughs discovering
new old treasures without guile
not bothering to suppress smile
for all new ways of a wondering
how much we'll miss not to pay
mind to joyful rhythms each day.

Thursday, September 15, 2016

Rich Man’s Manager (Poem for September18, 2016)

Rich Man’s Manager (Poem for September18, 2016)
My sins outweigh my virtues.
          You name it I’ve done it.
From Adam’s going along with something and then when caught try
           blaming it on the bad influence of companion munchers.
On to Aaron’s sin of wanting to please people abetting idol worship;
           shrinking God down to bite sized pieces.
All the way alphabetically to liking the ideas of Zoroastrianism’s
            seeing vultures in Towers of Silence as worthy as worms.
But I have figured it all out: I will try to out forgive God

Every sin I embrace I will forgive in another’s life.

I’ll be a promiscuous forgiver in the same way that
               I have been a gourmand of all the sins on the banquet.
Even those which have not yet slothfully crossed my mind
              I’ll admirably whistle and say Okey Dokey!
I’ll start with me and no longer beat myself up for not being God
              giving me some slack I have not deserved.
Then I’ll start with those closest to me who have hurt
               returning cheeks like a windmill
Then to enemies past and present from length of histories to width
               of geography, from heights of heaven to depths of hells.
In all my orisons I will work on amnesia of sins so that at the last
              there will be no accomplice witnesses, only harrowed hells.

It might be impossible but at least it sounds like a plan.

Thursday, September 8, 2016

A Vision of Jeremiah's God (poem for 11 September , 2016)


Another poem instead of a sermon



A Vision of Jeremiah’s God (Poem for 11 September, 2016)
Jeremiah’s God looking, seeing wasted land voiding
by foolish children working others full deprecation.
How easy it is for us to join sneering condemnation,
Them getting what they deserve for poor exploiting,
corrupting justice with the best government for sale
to the highest bidder, using laws excusing polluting
hate, intolerance and piling up all the riches looting,
while blithely prancing around altars bragging tale
how God must do God’s duty to shine down praise.
As heavens are befouled, they only progress seeing
That is not us”, we say, “We ne’er- do- ills in being
only acolytes benefiting of the actions of our days.”
Our noises refuse to hear Prophet say God's frown,
while insists the Divine due duty on us shine down.

Friday, September 2, 2016

Labor Continues


A Reflection and Poem for Labor Day                        All Saints’ Church, Southern Shores, NC 


September 4, 2016                                                       Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

Ecclesiasticus 38:27-32a Psalm 90:1-2, 16-17 1 Corinthians 3:10-14 Matthew 6:19-24

Labor Continues

The first lesson for today is from the Book of Ecclesiasticus, also called the Wisdom of Jesus ben

(son of) Sira, sometimes called Sirach. Ben Sira was a Rabbi who ran a school for wisdom in the
late 3rd and early 2nd Century BC in Jerusalem. His grandson translated it from Hebrew into

Greek after ben Sira had died. It was a popular book used in Synagogues as a source of wisdom

until the Christians kept bringing letters from some of their people like Paul to read in the

service, thereby upsetting a lot of people. The Rabbis gathered together and made some decisions

about what would be allowed to be read in Synagogue services. One of the rules was that the

books had to be originally written in Hebrew. By the time they got around to that decision, the

only copies they had of ben Sira were in Greek, so they threw it out of the canon of their

scripture. It wasn’t until the 1900’s that archeologists found Hebrew copies. The word

Ecclesiasticus means “church book”, and it was given this name by the early Christian Church

because they liked it and it was included in the Catholic and Orthodox Canon of Scripture. When

the Protestant reformers in the 16th century published Bibles, they followed the Jewish argument

of that time, excluding the same books as Rabbis did. The Romans kept them in their Canon

calling them “Deuterocanonical”, meaning “later added to the Canon”. The Anglicans put them

into a separate section called the Apocrypha which means “hidden” because they needed special

understanding.


In this selection from Ecclesiasticus, ben Sira takes a look at how each laboring group

approached their tasks: “

So it is with every artisan and master artisan who labors by night as well as by day; . . .
 
 All these rely on their hands, and all are skilful in their own work. Without them no city
 
an be inhabited, and wherever they live, they will not go hungry. Yet they are not sought
 
 out for the council of the people,




Part of what ben Sira sees is that Labor is what God did in the beginning of creation as the

master artisan, and what a human laborer does is to continue the labor of God on these
continuing 8th days of Creation. In looking forward to Paul's letter to the Corinthians for today,

he sees that God has laid the foundation, on which each day we are building with God's help. He

recognizes his own debt to the laborers who do so much so that he can teach and study, and he

teaches his students to have that same kind of respect. He seems to be doing a riff on Psalm 139

as he goes into detail as God, the image of all laborers, lovingly crafts the innermost part of each

of us with an awesome quality to set each of us apart, or to use the King James Translation: “We

are fearfully and wonderfully made”. Ben Sira marvels when the potter shapes us with the

infinite patience of that potter’s palms. We are not the product of a factory assembly line of

interchangeable parts for we are uniquely knitted in the utmost depths. In the same way the

divine architect continues to walk with us and fashion us with sublime thoughts. The Psalm for

today asks that all of our labor be blessed and to be a blessing: “May the graciousness of the 

LORD our God be upon us; *prosper the work of our hands; prosper our handiwork.”


God gives us the gifts of labor for the wellbeing of the world. What do we do when we are given

a precious gift? One thing we are tempted to do is to give an equal gift in return, but that is a

little hard to do; we can't get even with God. The other response is give thanks and to use the gift

and to be thankful every time we use it.


St Augustine in his City of God suggests that there are really two cities operating on this earth

-the City of God where people see all of their work in the context of building and caring for a

community of faith, and the City of Man which can do good things but is mainly concerned with

people finding their own limited and sometimes selfish goals. The city in which we live depends

on how we see what we and others do. Is a person working on the sewers living in the City of

God or the City of Man? It depends. If he/she goes to work only in order to put their own bread

on the table, they are a citizen in good standing of the City of Man. There is nothing wrong with

a person working for a living. If, however, they see all their work as a gift given to God’s

creation, of which they coincidently get paid a fair wage, then they have a deeper citizenship. A

refusal to pay a fair wage in order to increase one’s own profit is a sign of the abandonment of

the higher citizenship, as Jesus warns in the Gospel of Matthew reading for today when he

suggests that we cannot give primary allegiance to God and to our own wealth. Choices for what

has the greater call on us have to be made.



I wake up early and go to the club to do my morning workout. Sometimes I am so early that the

custodial staff is still in the process of cleaning up from the night before, and I see how hard they

work to get the place ready for the new day. I treat them with respect because each of them is a

gift from God; they are not my servants, but they are working in their own way with the gifts that

they have. I don't talk religion with them and try to convert them to being an Episcopalian, but

there have been times when we have stopped for a few minutes to pray together for something

that is troubling them in their own lives. I see us as fellow workers building on God's foundation.


Where I come from, I call that “Stewardship”, in that we are stewards of all of the moments of

our lives, all the gifts we have, all the talents we possess. It is not about giving 10% to God as a

tip for good service, but about seeing all of life as ministry of the gifts we receive. When I

cornered Joe and Linda Wilson to head up Stewardship, Joe reached over to his bookcase and

handed a small book to me called the Legend of the Monk and the Merchant by Terry Felber.

Felber posits that both the work of the merchant and the monk are holy work. Both are holy men

working in one case in the church and the other in the marketplace. Each was using the gifts they 
 
had to build on God's foundation, as they were giving themselves wherever they were.


Two weeks ago I addressed a group of teachers and leaders of a religious school on their retreat.

Their work was an outward and visible sign of their stewardship for they were giving themselves

to help their pupils. Yes they got paid, but I daresay much less than they were worth for the time

and energy they were giving. They felt as if God was calling for this kind of work. They were

lucky for their work was also their calling. They were given gifts, and their labor was a gift they

were giving. As the apostle James writes: “Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift,

is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or

shadow due to change.”





Labor Continues (poem)

In the beginning you formed us all from a dust

with potters patience. Then time came passion

as thy hands wonderfully bodies did fashion

while giving us freedom to use in infinite trust

hoping each gift used might be for greater good.

We often trash, squander those so precious gifts

giving excuse such as our “need” or mood lifts.

Quite surprise finding we still in Thy love stood,

forgiven before we ask, turning failing into new

opportunities to redeem even our selfish actions

finding way, bringing peace to warring factions

within us so gracefully from even them we grew,

taking tears of regret from our eyes into a water

softening clay continues handiwork of the Potter.