I am not Preaching at All Saints this week- I will be leading an educational event for Deacons on how to Preach and this is the reflection that will give on Sunday morning.
A Reflection on the
Occasion of a Preaching Workshop October 8, 2017
Trinity
Conference Center
Thomas E. Wilson
Consultation
of Sinai
This
has been an interesting week, starting last Sunday night with the
Blessing and Dedication of the renovated organ, the Quimby Opus 74,
at
Evensong. Oh, the sounds from that organ leading and blending with
the
singing of the choir and of the congregation of members and
visitors. It was
as if we were participating in God’s song of the
soul. I walked away that
evening and went home swimming in the music
as it resonated with the
song in my soul. How seldom do we allow
ourselves to be still enough to
hear and sing our divine soul song?
There is an invitation in Act 5 of The
Merchant of Venice
where Shakespeare has Lorenzo invite Jessica to be
still in the
moonlight to hear the music of the heavens:
“How
sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here
will we sit and let the sounds of music
Creep
in our ears. Soft stillness and the night
Become
the touches of sweet harmony.
Sit,
Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven
Is
thick inlaid with patens of bright gold.
There’s
not the smallest orb which thou behold’st
But
in his motion like an angel sings,
Still
choiring to the young-eyed cherubins.
Such
harmony is in immortal souls,
But
whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth
grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.”
Last
Sunday, there were so many moments when I was able to escape the
tyranny of my schedules and the ego of this “muddy vesture of
decay” of
my body and limited life - when I was able to hear the
harmony of my
immortal soul.
There
is an ancient Hebrew tradition of Interpretation of Scripture done by
the Rabbis, called Midrash,
which has four levels - PaRDeS, named for the
first letter of each
level: the Peshat
or the plain level, the Remez
or the deep
meaning, the Derash
or the seeking the
connections level, and the Sod
or
the mystery level, the Holy mystery not to be solved but lived
into. Most
people opt to stay on the surface, but going deeper into
scripture is a
spiritual journey and not to be taken literally.
In
the Hebrew Testament story for today, Moses goes to the darkness of
Mount Sinai to touch the “floor of heaven” and to hear the soul
song of
God. In my mind as I enter into this foundation story of the
children of
Israel’s identity, I picture God’s arms surrounding
Moses as God sings the
song of the Ten Words, the meaning of life for
all those who know that they
are made in the image of God. The Hebrew
Scripture does not call them
“Commandments” but “Words”. In
my imagination these were Words of
Love. I have tried to look at
these 10 words like the Rabbi Jesus did, who
knew the song of God in
his soul, when he asked which Commandment was
the most important, and
he entered into Midrash saying: “The first
Commandment is this that
you shall love the LORD, your God, with all
your heart and all your
mind and all your soul and the second is like unto it,
Thou shalt
love your neighbor as yourself. On these two Words hang all the
Law
and the Prophets”
In
my journey, I go past the literal plain text and descend to the Remez level.
I hear God singing the 10 words and I re-imagine their core:
1)
I am the One, who creates you in my own image,
2)
You’ll find strength loving into that living image,
3)
when our spirits are knitted together into one,
4)
so every moment becomes Holy Day as we unite.
5)
Parenting’s hard, they need love and forgiveness.
6)
Your life and lives of others are gifts treasured by us
7)
Love is my space between every relationship; join us
8)
as we together respect what neighbors love and have.
9)
I am in and under every breath, in each word uttered
10)
and gift given for you to make it through each day.
I
imagine God planting this God song into Moses’ soul, and he went
down to sing that song to his people at the foot of the mountain, for
in his Derash,
he made the connections with these words and the vision of a new kind
of society based on God’s love, inviting them to enter in Sod,
the mystery of God’s song. But once he got down there he saw that
the people had wandered far away from listening to God’s song and
started to compose songs of their own egos. He smashed the tablets
containing the 10 words on to the ground.
In
my imagination the leaders of the religious establishment, the people
in charge of the Organized Religion, the Mass, the “Massmen”, did
not like the sound of God’s song and decided to harden God’s
heart and turn love into laws of “should” and “ought” and
consulted with Moses to draft it into legalese. I wrote a poem of
that imaginary conference:
Hey
God, as your Massman looks over the tablets,
got
to tell you your dreams need more punch,
screams
for hard rules, laws to nail down habits,
or
grace will seem like invitation to a free lunch.
Scare
people a bit with a snarl of frayed nerves
they’ll
walk softly around you, making your day
I
mean, doesn’t fearful worship do what serves,
make
‘em think twice before they begin to pray.
No
damn good people’ll live down to base level.
You’ll
help ‘em by working up a good scare or two
Remind
them who’s boss before turn over to devil,
with
gory tales, divine revenge and turns of screw.
Theological
focus groups says you got to be tough
If
want to sell’em on all the heavenly reward stuff.
I
told you what it was like on Sunday evening to hear God’s song in
my soul. Then there was Monday morning, when I began to hear of the
slaughter in Las Vegas and I wondered where God’s song was in the
middle of the souls of the victims and of the murdered. I could hear
God’s song in the lives of the first responders who rushed into
danger to help strangers. I heard God’s song in the prayers of the
people witnessing these events.
I
think one of the things that happens to people is that they no longer
hear God’s soul song of love. I went inside myself and found out
how easy it is to stop listening. For the next several days as I got
busier and busier, I found myself getting annoyed, especially over
the fact that every day, sometimes several times each day, I would
drive back to the office and there were people parking in the space
that was clearly marked “Clergy Parking”. Possible explanations
ranged from an unforeseen influx of ordained clergy of unknown
faiths, or an inexplicable attack of mass illiteracy where people
lost the ability to read, or a paranoid thought of a concerted attack
on my “WMP”, White Male Privilege. Shutting off the vibrations of
God’s soul song, hardening my heart by paying attention to my
bruised ego, I entertained fantasies of response. Should I put a
nasty note on the trespassing car to shame them? Or should I park my
car right behind them, blocking them in to show my power? Or should I
go into the kitchen to get a knife to slash the tires to make them
fearful of my displeasure? Or should I get a gun and shoot up the
sinner’s car? Or should I not stop, as the shooter in Las Vegas on
Sunday night did not, and get 20 some guns and vent my rage on as
many people as who did not pay me enough worth and worship me.
The
way out of this madness was to be still and listen again to God’s
loving song. Commandments without love have no power to change
behavior. There is a movement by some to post copies of the Ten
Commandments on courthouse walls, but then they just become a way of
ascribing Divine Sanction as an attempt to keep societal control. Do
the word association -Law and Order, Crime and Punishment. Without
love there is no justice, and all we do is use law to protect the
status quo of the powerful.
This
weekend we have been talking about Preaching. The purpose of
Preaching is not to impress them with what you know, or straighten
people out, or persuade them to think like as we do, or to make them
do what you want them to do, or to follow the correct procedure, or
obey the Commandments, or to shame sinners, or to threaten
backsliders. But rather it is to invite them to join you in a deeper
life of love, listening to God’s love song in their souls so they
can remember who, and in whose image, they are. As Paul reminds us
in his first Letter to the Corinthians, “If
I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have
love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.”
No comments:
Post a Comment