Circles:

A Reflection for the 4th Sunday in Lent St. Luke/ St Anne’s Roper and Grace, Plymouth March 30, 2025 Thomas E Wilson, Guest Celebrant and Preacher Joshua 5:9-12 2 Corinthians 5:16-21 Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 Psalm 32 Circles First of all I would like to thank you for allowing me to come back, since I double booked the last time I was scheduled to come here as your guest Preacher and Celebrant. I had double booked to cover for another Priest. In April and May, I will continue the circle of being your guest here on the 1st and 3rd Sundays, but I will not be with you in June since I will be doing the yearly circle of checking in with my daughter and grandsons in Colorado. In July I will be filling in daily for the Priest in Nags Head who will be on his sabbatical. Circles; one of the things I noticed about the lessons for today is the image of circles. In the Hebrew Testament lesson from the Book of Joshua. Jacob, the Wandering Aramaen, is remembered: he had left the land of Promise during the time of famine and went down with his family to join his son, Joseph, to begin a new life there. It was meant to be a short visit. But they overstayed their welcome when, as the writers explain, “there came to pass a Pharaoh, who knew not Joseph”. That Pharaoh saw not the descendants of Joseph who saved Egypt from famine, but now saw only a group of foreign immigrants ripe for exploitation. Moses taught the Egyptians soon that there was a price to pay for exploiting. The Hebrew people were allowed to leave bondage in Egypt, wandering in the wilderness until they were able to cross the River Jordan and return to their Promised land again.. They had returned to the beginning, the circle was completed. They set up an altar, a circle of stones, and called the place Gilgal; the word “Gilgal” in Hebrew means “Circle”. No longer will they eat the tasteless manna of the wilderness, but are able to return to eat the fruit of the crops of the land which they had eaten before their bondage in Egypt. They will now think of building places of worship and returning to Holy places. The Circle of Exile was over. In the Epistle for today, Paul writes to the Corinthians, who spend a heck of a lot of time squabbling with each other. He invites them to take a circle back to God’s love and forgiveness. They are reminded that there is a circle in God’s love, for they came from God’s love and God in Christ is reconciling all of them to the heart of God, in this life and even beyond. Even beyond; I am reminded of that 1907 song that Johnny Cash updated and used to sing Will the circle be unbroken By and by Lord, by and by There's a better home awaiting In the sky Lord, in the sky Paul’s view of a church was a circle of people who belonged to each other and then learned how to believe with each other. He would have approved of a thought written by Dianna Butler Bass. “Instead of believing, behaving and belonging, we need to reverse the order to belonging, behaving and believing. Jesus did not begin with questions of belief. Instead, Jesus ‘ public ministry began when he formed a community," The Gospel gives us another story of the Circle of belonging. Jesus tells a story in the Gospel lesson for today, about which is often given the Title of “The Prodigal Son”. That is the name given by people who want to focus on sin. But what I like to call “The Loving Father” because I like to focus on love. I have a daughter, who I will visit in June, who is in her mid fifties and has two grown up sons. In her, and their, growing up, they did some stupid things, but I never stopped loving them. When you love your children, you can get really annoyed with their actions, but you never really stop loving them. I was one of four children of my parents and they taught me, by example, that there was nothing I could ever do that would stop their love for me. There were more than a few times I would get punished, but love was never withdrawn. No matter what I did, the circle always returned to love. Where are the circles in your life? We all have them and, sometimes, we just neglect to notice the opportunity to complete the circles. Marion Woodman, a Jungian Psychologist, author, poet and mystic, commented on how we miss having connecting circles with other people, and even with our own body and soul. She wrote. Many people can listen to their cat more intelligently than they can listen to their own despised body. Because they attend to their cat in a cherishing way it returns their love. Their body, however, may have to let out an earth shattering scream in order to be heard at all. (To which I would note, sometimes we have to wait for our soul to scream at us before we pay attention.) The churches I find I like visiting the most, are the churches where people greet each other when they come in. They touch and laugh and ask about each other. And they also listen to the answers. They are welcoming back each other into the circle which is the church of people who love, and know they need, Jesus. In contrast, I spend a heck of a lot of time in buildings where grumpy people arrive to attend a meeting where they are supposed to listen and behave and recite the proper responses in the ceremony; getting a weekly dose of religion. They are not spending energy forming a circle, but they are visiting to punch their religion ticket, which they were told could benefit them after they die. Circles are what we do to make life worthwhile in the present moment, ticket punching is for.what we fear we will need after we die There is a phrase used in the religious business: “Conduct a service.” The implication is that we clergy are the conductors, who collect the money and punch the ticket for those on the religious ride. I prefer the words “Preside over” the service. People who come are the ones doing the service. You people do not come alone; you bring those who are in your hearts. My hope is you come in order to be in a holy space to say special words about people you are in a circle with. People with whom you love, or live with, or carry in your hearts, even when they are annoying.. The father in the Gospel lesson probably went to the synagogue every week to be in a circle to help hold his absent son up in prayer for God to fill his heavy heart, and for heavenly protection for his absent son. I imagine the father would leave the service, and on the way home, he would stop and look down the road hoping to catch a glimpse of the circle being healed with his son’s return. And then, one day it happens; he sees the youngest son coming down the road and he runs towards him and is all over him like a cheap suit. The past is gone and the circle is complete. Circles are when you come to your real self. Or when you return home from being away. Today when I go back home, my dog will wake up and acknowledge that I had been gone and now it is time for me to take him for a walk. He is an old dog and used to that circle. I remember the summer of 1966, when I had finished my Sophomore Year at Chapel Hill, I got an acting job working at an Outdoor Drama down in Florida and had not come home since Christmas Break and now was to be gone for almost the whole summer. My girlfriend at the time, who spent the summer with me, whom my parents had never met, but had heard about, drove me home from Florida to New York, two days of travel. When she pulled in the driveway, my parents ran out to hug me, my mother cried for joy. My father, the Southern Gentleman, welcomed her, while my mother was polite to this woman in her son’s life. She was then aware that the child circle had been completed and a new circle had already begun.. There is a circle of being aware that we come from God when we are born and we return to God when we die. That is part of my faith and I believe it, most of the time. I look like I arrive alone when I come to your services, but there is someone whom you have not met, but who is with me every minute I am here, whom I married in 1989. I am here with my wife, Pat, in my heart. The first years after I retired she would come with me to the churches in which I would fill in, or do Interim Work, and we would stop for lunch on the way home. When she got weaker, I stopped doing fill-ins. She died almost two years ago, but she is with me in the space between each breath I take and each word I say. She is still part of my circle every day of my life. It is not that I don’t accept her death. I do, but she is still part of my circle in this life. I know I am not the only one who brings the spirits into their own circles, whom we cannot see with our eyes, but whom we know in faith. Will the circle be unbroken By and by Lord, by and by There's a better home awaiting In the sky Lord, in the sky CIRCLES Thinking about the circles in my life. Like walking to and back from school Walking there and fearing the cruel Moments caught in failure or strife, Then when much older in the church, Not always sure I believed that day, Or moment, on what I’d say to pray, Or what Holy sign for me to search. Then on the walk back home to see, Beauties which I could now behold, Reaching me, try to hearten my soul. Now, from all my failures I was free, When in imagining holding my wife Into arms embrace of meaning in life.