Soaring With Eagles

 

A Reflection and Poem for 12^th Sunday after Pentecost       Thomas E. Wilson, Guest Celebrant

St Mary's Episcopal Church, Gatesville, NC                         August 27, 2022

Sirach 10:12-18     Psalm 81:1, 10-16       Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16       Luke 14:1, 7-14

Dylan Mack Cloutier; Soaring With Eagles

From the reading from the Book of Sirach or Ecclesiasticus; “The beginning of human pride is to forsake the Lord;/the heart has withdrawn from its Maker.” The Book was a compilation of sayings and lessons from the compiler's grandfather, a Rabbi in Egypt a couple centuries before the birth of Jesus. It was a popular book among Jews and would have been used freely by Rabbis like Jesus, whose mother, on finding she was pregnant, sang a song, the Magnificat, sprinkled with sayings from this book. Jesus probably was aware of the reading for today and used it as the core of his teaching in the Gospel reading for today. Although popular, it was not considered part of the Jewish Canon of Scripture because there was some question if it was originally written in Greek, not Hebrew. The early Christian church accepted it as inspired but there were quibbles about including it as part of the Canon. The Protestant Reformation scholars dropped it for their Bibles, while the Church of England demoted it a quasi scripture category called the Apocrypha.

From the Gospel lesson for today:

Jesus said also to the one who had invited him, "When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."

The lesson is about how pride, self- love born out of fear, gets in our way in following God. We are so worried about what people think of our image, that it gets in the way of loving either neighbor or God. The Early church considered Pride as the Mother of All Sins, the Chief of the Seven Deadly Sins. It was considered an “Original Sin”, so in the Medieval times, at the time of an infant baptism, the Baptizing Priest would pinch the Baby, so that in the resulting scream the Devil would be expelled to come out and the Blessed Holy Waters would cover the child in the healing holiness. Priests also learned that if you are Baptizing a male baby and you dunk the naked male baby in the containers of warm water, and then take him out, you needed to have the male baby face away from you, or the Altar Guild will be ticked off having to clean the vestments.

One of the high points, every time I come to Gatesville to preside of a banquet of Holy Communion; I am driving through the Great Dismal Swamp and I get a chance to see Bald Eagles, nesting and hunting, living free and wild. When I was a teenager, we were being warned about, what Rachel Carson called, “the silencing of the birds”. She pointed out with the overuse of dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane or DDT, many bird populations were threatened. Action and prayer for changing the way we lived, was a road to the recovery of several species, like Bald Eagles. Every time I come, my banquet was beginning before I ever got to the town limits as I was blessed by the resurrection of the Bald Eagle Population and the sacrifices made to make it happen,. I was their guest, God's guest and the Eagles' guest.

When I drive through the Great Dismal Swamp, I remember how it had a been a haven for runaway slaves, from 1619, when African slavery was first introduced on English speaking soil, all the way to the end of the Civil War in 1865, 246 years of sanctuary. I am driving through Holy Ground, I am an uninvited guest and I am blessed by those who struggle in hope.

By the time I get here, I realize how blessed I am and you invite me to join you in blessing God. I come to the Great Thanksgiving already thankful. Thank you.

Today, when we do the Baptism of Dylan, we invite him as our guest of honor. He has not done a thing to deserve your love, kindness or blessing. For years; he will not be rich or a member of the Vestry. His pledge will not be great. There will be times when he will not follow the sermon. There will be times when he will not operate on your schedule. Yet, he is a gift from God. Your task is to teach by example of word and deed how to love and care for his and your neighbor, his and your environment, his and your church, and his and your Creating, Redeeming and Sanctifying God.

What better place than this area to teach him. This is a place where people, who came longing for freedom, have centuries of history. This is a place where against long odds, Eagles Soar.

Dylan Mack Cloutier; Soaring With Eagles

Dylan's a child whom I will baptize this Sunday.

Saying all the right words, I'll try to get us out in time,

words he (and we) won't understand by reason or rhyme,

but with hope, his heart begins, to break open that day.

Medieval priests pinched a child to let the devil out,

so newly blessed Holy water would cleanse his soul,

as Godparents made promises as a kind of re-sole,

of their boots on the long march against their doubt.

We hope for him to weep for joy as the eagles (bald),

continue to prosper out of town on the Dismal Swamp,

where once they almost disappeared in a past DDT romp,

but now, by prayer and action, that slaughter had stalled.

Make him open. we pray. to live into a new hope,

that into the still promised land, we'll not just grope.