Are You Listening, Paying Attention?
There is a lot of silence space takes
and a heck of a lot of noise inside
that covers us up in a galactic ride
as our moon love to planet makes.
They paid attention to each other
saying we'll always work together
day in, night out, in dancers tether,
sharing womb of same God Mother.
What would happen if we'd dance
as if we heard the music of the stars,
their steps directing the same as ours,
since we're all living in God's manse?
Jubilee's announces us to begin singing
new hope of our healing and forgiving.
On January 17th, 2019 I started to prepare to preach my last reflection at St. George's, Lake Landing on January 27, 2019 for I was planning to start as Interim at Christ Church, Elizabeth City the week after that. I was also going to do a House Blessing for a special family at St. George's. My first step in preparing a message is to write a poem based on my understanding of the Lectionary lessons for that day. One of the themes is that when I bless a house I don not have the power to make things "holy" but I have the honor to being able to point out the Holy in the ordinary. I had finished my poem and I started to write a prose reflection based on the lessons. The next day my wife had to go to the Outer Banks Hospital emergency department with a lung infection and was transferred to a larger hospital in Chesapeake where she stayed for two weeks. The specialist told me that my wife was going to need my help and I should clear my schedule. Therefore, I did not do the service at St. George's and I backed out of working at Christ Church. I found I needed to pay attention. I think the poem was a synchronicity, a part of the Spirit's telling me what was coming up in our lives and how I needed to pay attention..
Pat is still in the process of healing and we just returned yesterday for a three day repeat hospital visit for another issue. Today, six months later, I was going through my computer to clean up my files and I came across the unfinished file of the poem and the introduction to the reflection. I will leave it unfinished but I realized I still needed to listen to the Spirit and I will try to do the discipline of writing a poem for my soul's health.
From the Psalm for today starts off
with the image that God is speaking all the time from the heavens
silently proclaiming, and the earth echoing the message of God's love
and presence and the faithful in the everyday interaction in the
community and then the singer of the Psalm sings; “Let the words of
my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight,
* O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.”. This verse is the prayer
that many preachers give, either aloud or silent as they prepare to
give a reflection, sermon or reflection when the church gathers
together to hear the good news from God. The singer and the Nation
that sings these songs is asking God's help to hear what God is
saying as the people gather together. The three other lessons have a
theme of people gathering together to hear the good news from God.
The passage from Nehemiah has the
reading of a portion of Torah when the exiles have returned home
Babylon. When the people returned the Temple had been torn down by
the Babylonians and the people had lived as strangers in a strange
land longing to hear God calling them to return. They have come back
and have rebuilt a much less lavish version of the Old Temple, They
gather to worship and are overwhelmed to hear Holy Words in Holy
Space as they are aware that they are living in Holy Time when God is
present. The past, when they wandered far from God, is over;
forgiveness begins a new day in a Community of Faith. They hear the
good news that they are a community gathered to walk together on Holy
Ground as the space between them is filled with God's presence.
Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians,
writes to tell them that each of them has a gift given by God's Holy
Spirit and the task is to listen to discern what are their particular
gift. Paul had written to them because they were squabbling amongst
each other over so many issues of resentment. They are so busy
arguing they don't have the inclination to listen to anything but the
words in their own silos. Paul uses the analogy of the community as a
body, a Holy body to do the Holy Work of bringing new life to the
world in which they live. The past where the Corinthians needed to
rely on their own agendas can now be over if they can only stop to
listen and discern what God's Spirit is saying to each one of them in
a Community of Faith
Jesus in the Gospel lesson comes back
to his hometown of Nazareth and filled with God's Spirit preaches the
Good News. The Good News is that God is present and calling them to
participate in God's Holy Time, the Time of Jubilee when sins are
forgiven and the community
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