A Reflection for V Pentecost (Proper 9) All Saints’
Episcopal, Southern Shores, NC
July 9, 2017 Thomas
E. Wilson, Rector
Monday Morning Dismissal
Over the years, I have
observed that there are times when someone comes to a decision about making a
change in their life and affirms the need for God's help in making that change at
Sunday morning worship. Then comes Monday morning, and fear starts to come into
play. We see that God will not magically change that person, place, or thing,
but that the real change with God's help has to come from within; we have to
change and we are not sure we want to open up that can of worms. On Monday
morning we dismiss God and send God back to the bench where the Divine is
supposed to wait patiently for the next order. No change means no change.
When we do not change, we
become like the children referred to in the passage from Matthew. Jesus
observed them playing in the marketplace. They were playing at copying adult
behavior, doing pretend weddings and pretend funerals, and they complained that
the adults don’t seem to take them seriously and do not join in the dance or
the mourning. Jesus suggests that the adults probably don’t look at the deeper
reality of the events of their daily lives with the presence of God. For all
intents and purposes, they have restricted the presence of God to religious
ceremonies where every day seems to be a Monday morning dismissal..
We continue the Abrahamic
saga today with another story about Isaac, the son of the promise. You may
remember that in the lesson from last week Abraham bound Isaac for sacrifice
and pulled a knife on him. I think we can say that this had a traumatic effect
on the boy. This week's story begins with Isaac no longer living in his
father's tent - surprise, surprise. He
is growing up - if we follow the Biblical chronology, he is about 40 - and it
is past time for him to change his life from mourning his mother's death five
years before. It is time for him to start his own family in order to keep the
promise. He is in deep mourning for his mother so he does not go out looking
for himself; indeed Abraham limits his choices and sends his servant to visit
the old homestead and find a cousin for Isaac to marry.
The servant is a holy man and
he asks for God's help in finding the right woman for Isaac. He is looking for
someone who can welcome a stranger and who doesn't mind getting her hands
dirty. She has to be a tough woman who has compassion, someone who can help
Isaac grow up, stand on his own two feet, and move on from his mother's shadow
and the fear of his father. He finds her and gives her the freedom to choose
instead of leaving it all up to her family, for she knows that God is working
in her life to make a change. On the long camel ride back to Isaac's tent, I
wonder if she had any moments of hesitation? Later on in the saga, she will have a Monday
Morning Dismissal in collusion with her favorite son, Jacob, to hijack the
father’s blessing from Esau..
Tom Ehrich, an
Episcopal Priest and church consultant who was here a number of years ago to
help us look at our church, did a meditation on the 4th of July using
today’s Gospel passage from Matthew. He
looked at our checkered history as a nation and how we tend not to look at it
too closely because it is too painful to comprehend. He mentioned how our
ancestors came to this country to find religious freedom and then tried to deny
that freedom to others, how they came to find freedom and then enslaved others,
how they longed for freedom from a rigid class system and then worked to stack
the deck against others in order to maintain their social position. I would call them Monday Morning Dismissals
from the American Dream. Ehrich said: “We are like the people who shouted
against John the Baptist because they didn’t like his asceticism, and they
shouted against Jesus because they didn’t like his freedom. In the end, they
were simply shouters out to preserve their small worlds.”
Monday Morning
Dismissals happen when we try to live in our small worlds where there is no
place for God. We tend to have a habit of trying to avoid what we do not want
to see and, as the euphemism goes, ask the government to use “extreme
prejudice” to get rid of them as a way of avoiding the fear- filled need to
change, as in the case of John the Baptizer and Jesus of Nazareth. Sometimes we
try to avoid the announcers of the change that we fear. If we have the power,
we might try to fire them or, if we don't have that power, we run away and make
a geographical change. The problem is that if we take ourselves with us, only
the scenery will change. Sometimes in our inability to avoid, we find
scapegoats and place our blame – and project our fear - onto them.
Over a half century ago when
I finished my sophomore year in college, I had a job working in a play during
the summer. Shows were at night followed by a party or two, and the days were
free to hang out on the beach with no thought of skin cancers because nothing
bad was ever going to happen to me. On the beach my girlfriend and I became
friendly with a cartoonist and his family. One of the cartoons he sold to
Playboy Magazine was of a South Seas island setting where the natives are
gathered before the fearsome huge native idol. The leader of the tribe was
saying something like, “Oh Great Calabonga; this will be our last sacrifice,
the last time we will be meeting with you, for next week will be joining the
Methodists.”
That year was one of the
years that I fired God as my Supreme Being because I was dissatisfied with the
Divine performance. The whole idea of God was getting in my way, and I figured
that God was not a concept of which I needed to be burdened. There had been a
part of me that had been considering ordained ministry, but I thought that
maybe having a relationship with God might need to be a pre-requisite for
ordination. For the next 15 years I would make several attempts at giving God
part-time work on my behalf; everybody needs to be kept busy. But there came a
time when I realized that while I was so full of myself, I was actually an
empty shell, and I really heard the words of this Gospel lesson: “Come to me, all
you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart,
and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is
light.”
I also really heard the
line from Paul’s letter to the Romans where Paul relates his life: “Wretched
man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God
through Jesus Christ our Lord!” I wish I could say that there was one moment
when it all made sense and I never returned to the practice of giving God a
pink slip, but there are still times when I am made painfully aware of the need
for me to change and I don't want to, and the desire for issuing a Monday
Morning Dismissal becomes tempting.
Sometimes the desire for giving God walking
papers comes in the form of delusions of how change might be possible if I do a
geographic cure and retire to become a beachcomber. Other times I get all
worked about something to take my mind off the change because nothing feels
better than being “righteously angry” about something over which I have no
control - because then I become distracted about things I do not want to
control but can with God's help. It is at those late night moments when I am
glad I don’t use Twitter and expose myself in all my weakness. I may the only person in this room to feel
like that but I will take a guess that I am not. Those moments are fleeting,
and they usually only occur when I am made aware that I am called to take
seriously listening to God instead of seeing God as my back-up plan. Then
the comfortable words comes to me: “Come unto me, all ye that travail and are heavy laden and I will refresh you.” Wretched
one that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God
through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
Monday Morning Dismissal
I'm sorry God but I am going to have to let you go.
You've a habit of wanting to yin when I want yang.
You don't do enough to stop me the whole shebang
from messing up: should have hollered loud “whoa”!
But no you just burdened me with a vague oversight
of doing the loving thing and reaping consequences
as if I should have known about leaning on fences
might end up crossing the line to dumb from bright.
You seem not to understand that I don't want to change
either my habits or myself. Wanting to just get along
without burdens of making transformation for lifelong
commitment when have to my priorities daily rearrange.
I want to be free and you to be my pet advice
contributor;
showing a reason words “god” and “dog” are so
similar.”
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