Thomas On Second Sabbath

 

A Reflection for 2^nd Sunday of Easter                   St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, Nags Head, NC

April 24, 2022                                                        Thomas E. Wilson, Guest Celebrant

Thomas On Second Sabbath

Today I want to focus in on my namesake, Thomas. I was never given a good reason I was named Thomas. My father told a story about being at a bar near the hospital at St. Louis while my mother was in the hospital in labor with me and I was taking my time. The nurses told him to go out for awhile, out of the waiting room. He suggested that a guy at the bar next to him was named Thomas. I seem to remember that my mother rolled her eyes, sighed and shook her head when he told me that story.

In John's Gospel, the writer three times (11:16, 20:24, 21;2) has the phrase “Thomas, called Didymus” (Θωμᾶς ὁ λεγόμενος Δίδυμος). Usually, if someone tells you the same thing three different times, they are either poetic or trying to say something. His, and my, name is Thomas and he, and I, have a twin. We all have twins. It is not a biological twin but rather there are two parts of us, the me on the surface, whom my ego spends a lot of energy to keep bright and shiny. Then, there is, unconsciously, in us, the me that is my, what Carl Jung labels, “shadow”, and with whom my ego spends a great deal of energy keeping from coming to the conscious surface and hidden. I have hints of my shadow when I come into contact with people, places or things and I have unexplainable feelings, positive or negative, towards them. It is called projection.

We see positive projection and we call it “love at first sight” and have fantasies that this other person, place or thing could meet all of my needs. “ At last sweet mystery of life I've found you!” This is called “Falling in love”, which is not love but a psychological malady. It is a fantasy that you have twin souls. I wonder if the other disciples called Thomas “the Twin” because they saw his intense connection to the man Jesus, even more intense than they themselves had. When I do pre-marital counseling and the couple talks about how they “fell in love” and I see projection at work, I usually assign them an assignment to bring in a disagreement, I call it a “fight”, to the next session. I want to see how they can deal with each other when the projections are challenged and how they can still embrace the less than perfect fantasy person.

The Roadside Wedding Chapel Business is booming and divorces are high because  positive projections are so powerful but they do not stand up to reality long before being replaced by negative projections..

We have negative projections: when I come into contact with traits in someone else, that my ego has been working overtime to reject in me and then unconsciously I project anger, blame on them and shame on me. Those things that our egos have tried so hard to reject; I start to project onto others. It is the reason we want to keep having villains in plays, movies and stories, whose actions we boo and hiss, in the made up stories, or even news accounts, we tell. Every dream that I have which has a villain, and they all do, he or she is really the side of me I don't want to acknowledge. If I keep having variations of the same dream with similar villains; it is my soul telling me to wake up and deal with it in real life. If you choose not to remember your dreams and you want to shadow work; watch the evening news and pay attention to what most grabs your negative energy. Then it is “Me and My Shadow” time.

I want to focus on the fact that this second Sabbath, the first Sabbath after the Resurrection was a story of Thomas' entry into a Spiritual Life, by withdrawing his projections. Thomas Merton, another Thomas, was in charge of orienting, or helping the novice Monks at Gethsemane Abbey get a Spiritual Life. He had an opening line; “Gentlemen, the first thing about getting a Spiritual Life is for you to get a life.”

A Spiritual life is one of integrity. “Integrity” is a word that comes from the Latin “integer”, When used as a noun it is “Steadfast adherence to a strict moral or ethical code” and as an adjective “integral” defined as “Constituting a whole together with other parts or factors; not omittable or removable.

During the first week of Sabbath, Thomas chose not to be present, he chose to be “omittable and removable”. He had spent a lot of time before Jesus was arrested bragging that he would be with Jesus wherever he would go. Thomas' positive projections on Jesus were as the strong man who could speak one word and destroy all enemies. But Jesus had the sword put up and goes peacefully into his arrest and death. Jesus went to the cross and Thomas, his projections on Jesus in tatters, went to hide out. I don't think he was “Doubting Thomas” as much as he was “Divided and Damaged Thomas”. Filled with shame, which he does not want to admit, over his broken allegiance, he tried to deny responsibility for missing the first meeting of the Friends of Jesus on the Sabbath of the resurrection. Thomas said that unless he could put his fingers in the wounds of Jesus and his hands in the slashed side of Jesus, how could he, Thomas, be expected to believe? Thomas implies that it was not his fault but the fault of Jesus that he could not believe.

Again, as you have heard me say before, the word “believe” does not mean the acceptance of a proposition, but a commitment to the reality of it in ones own life. For instance, to “believe about” means something like “I believe there is an Omaha, Nebraska “, means only that your mind accepts a possibility of an existence of a city in Nebraska; but so what, what does it matter? Whereas the phrase “I believe in Omaha, Nebraska!” means that one is committed to Omaha being of vital importance in one's life, regardless of all its' shortcomings.

What happens is that Thomas makes a decision, to bring all of his doubt, all of his failure of nerve, all of his cowardliness; his whole being. His integral being - the light and the shadow, the good and the bad, his love and his fear, and brings all of it to Jesus. One's spiritual life begins in integrity of bringing one's whole being into relationship with the Risen Lord.

The Thomas story is, yes, the story about the resurrection of Jesus, but it is also the story of the resurrection of Thomas, who comes to new, and whole, life. It is like any relationship facing the times of difficulty. Wholeness begins when, we drop our projections on each other, bring our brokenness to the other and forgive even before we are asked to forgive. Resurrection is not just a one time historical event but a daily event when we live our lives with integrity. Thomas Merton in his autobiography Seven Story Mountain writes about that kind of moment

When a ray of light strikes a crystal, it gives a new quality to the crystal. And when God's infinitely disinterested love plays upon a human soul, the same kind of thing takes place. And that is the life called sanctifying grace.

Often we approach God with the things that we have done right; suggesting that God owes us for being a “good boy or girl”; God owes us one. We want God to fall in love with us. God does not fall in love with us, the love was alive long before we were born. But God calls us to come forward, broken as we are, as Thomas was, and trust in God's love, not God's reward. That is the beginning of a spiritual life; bringing our whole self , shadow and all, into the hope for resurrection to new life.

Thomas On Second Sabbath

Thomas, and whoever else; just be still.

Take a deep breath; breathing in, hold,

then hold more, until your mind's bold

enough for you to dare to build your will.

Your will to love, leaving behind your guilt

about letting me down, or agreeing to betray,

even after bragging that with me you'd stay

all the way, and beyond whatever evil built.

You don't have to ask; you were forgiven,

long before your feet stopped running

away from the guards and their cunning

laying their hands on me, the one given.

Open the eyes of your heart to see my risen love,

ascending from death, descending like the dove.

Invitations in Creating a New Future

 

Easter Sunday 2022                            St Mary's Gatesville, NC

April 17, 2022                                   Thomas E Wilson; Guest Celebrant

Invitations in Creating a New Future

Alleluia, Christ is Risen!

The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!

What do we celebrate today? Is it the beginning of the end or is it the end of the beginning? And the answer is “Yes!”

I want to thank you for inviting me to join you on this Easter Morning. I join you as a guest and you have done me the honor of welcoming me as if I belonged to this community of St. Mary's. I am already here but not yet a member of this community. We share some beliefs, some norms of behavior but in order to be a member of this community I would need to be with you day in and day out, sharing laughter, arguments, weep and rejoice at the same time together; that is what makes a church.

Diane Butler Bass observed in her book, Christianity After Religion: The End of Church and the Birth of a New Spiritual Awakening:

“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 started when he formed a community.”

The end of the beginning, an invitation in creating a new future, a new community, is one of the themes in the lessons for today. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” In the beginning of creation, God created a vision for a new future, a community with God. But, as the story goes, the people decided they wanted to be in charge of their own staircase to the future. There were people like Jacob who saw the staircase in a vision, as an invitation to community. But even then, his sons shattered that community by selling their brother Joseph into slavery into Egypt. It should have been the beginning of the end.

Even then, God called forth Moses to bring the people back into community with God. But the people formed into competing groups, splintering the staircases. When Moses brought the people into the Promised Land, he shared God's vision for community; but over the years the vision that the people came up with was not in community with God, but rather to be in charge of their own staircases with Kings, Class structures and Religious Institutions.

In response, God called for Prophets to share the vision of a community with God going deeper down the staircase into the heart of God. In the Hebrew Testament lesson for today from the School of the Prophet Isaiah, the writer echos the invitation to the people in Exile in Babylon to take the first step. The school of the Prophet Isaiah, scholars theorize, began around 740 BC with the Prophet urging the people and rulers to to live into a community of justice instead of exploitation and greed so as to be worthy of being a Kingdom of God. The rulers were proud and stubbornly refused and the county was taken over by Assyria and later conquered by the Babylonians in 587 BC. who dragged away many to live in exile in Babylon. The school of Isaiah continued to comfort and minister to the people in the exile period and then in 539 BC , the Persians conquered the Babylon and allowed the people of Judah to return. The school of Isaiah ministered to the hopes of the returning exiles and painted a vision of the renewed community. They saw the hope that it was not the beginning of the end but the end of the beginning. This is language of the vision of the new heavens and new earth in the lesson for today. It was an invitation to work together for a new return to a deeper community. However, the nation chose to put its faith in a new Temple and religious institutions. Therefore it continues its decline and becomes a corrupt puppet state in the backwaters of the Roman Empire. That should have been the beginning of the end.

But Jesus echos the school of Isaiah as he begins his public ministry at the Synagogue in Nazareth, and he begins to gather a community of followers with his vision. This new community lived as if was already, but not yet; it was the not the beginning of the end but the end of the beginning. Yet, the vision was thwarted when they squabbled among themselves over who was the greatest. When Jesus was destroyed by the corrupt religious, economic and political institutions, the community fell apart. It should have been the beginning of the end.

Yet, some still held on to the hope. As the Gospel lesson for today starts off: “Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark,” a hint by the writer that a whole new dawn is coming. In this already and not yet, the already and not yet is about the struggle to believe the witness of the empty tomb and enter into community to walk down the stairway together. Peter sees the empty tomb, and goes back to regather the community together. Mary has a meeting with the risen Christ, but she want to hold on to the past, hold on to him. He tells her that the past is gone and it is time for a new vision for the future; she is told not to hold on to him; don't hold on to the past, but catch the vision of a new community. It is not the beginning of the end but the end of the beginning. The witnesses see the empty tomb but do not begin to believe, or change behavior or understand until they re-create a new community. However the community is stymied by divisions about who really belongs in the community and who is in charge.

The apostle Paul spends his energies trying to help mold a new creation of community following the Risen Lord and he lives faithfully inviting others to join to go deeper together down the staircase into the heart of the Risen Christ. Paul writes that letter to the Corinthians and to other churches that a creation of community is being thwarted by the squabbling over matter of doctrine and personality.

The church keeps revisiting the staircase of the vision of the future. However they waste time in squabbles over doctrine and behavior so that start to cling to opposing views as heresy and refuse to speak to each other.

Constantine three centuries later, made the church the official religion of the Roman Empire, but it was an already and not yet exercise over squabbles of doctrine and control, which continues to this day.

I have been going to church for three quarters of a century. When it was time for me to be confirmed, more than six decades ago, a learned a song at church camp sung to the tune of “God Bless America”:

I am an Anglican,
I am P.E., (Protestant Episcopal)
I am High Church and Low Church,
I am Protestant and Catholic and free.
Not a Presby, or a Lutheran,
Or a Baptist white with foam,
I am an Anglican,
Just one step from Rome
I am an Anglican,
Via media, my home.

I lived in towns with rows of competing churches. I worshipped in churches which split between radical liberals, mainstream liberals, mainstream conservatives and radical conservatives and people who just didn't care.

Divisions between races,

   between economic classes,

       between political persuasion,

Division about what was thought to be really important - things like; should women come into church with heads uncovered.

    About how to deal with women.

        How to deal with gay children.

            You name it and we would fight about it and push people out of community.

Today is Easter Sunday, the day we keep hearing:“Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark,” a hint by the writer that a whole new dawn is coming. Like Mary. it is not a time to hold on to the past, but to be open to see a new vision of community and join in creating a new future. It is about going beyond the boundaries of the traditional church structure; about joining with other churches, even to joining with those who do not profess a Christian doctrine, joining with people with whom we disagree to build community. A community, not as the beginning of the end but the end of the beginning, which is always what resurrection means. For as Isaiah reminds us what God continues in saying: “I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating;”

Alleluia, Christ is Risen!

The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!

Invitations in Creating a New Future

The death of someone loved, we see as an end,

wanting so desperately to hold on to a past,

as if we'd a power or permission to be asked,

yet, allowing that spirit into our soul to emend.

His hopes and dreams becoming one with mine,

as I surrender myself from the center of being,

allowing him bond with me, new eyes seeing

a deeper reality, with a strengthening of spine.

His end was really the end of our beginning,

a resurrection into a new life in this world,

to journey into his dreams with sails unfurled

to live a resurrection life to new hope clinging.

The sun rising means that a new future begins,

in which we work together as if his love wins.

Palm Sunday 2022

 

A Reflection for Palm Sunday                            St. Thomas Episcopal Church, Ahoskie, NC

April 10, 2022                                                    Thomas E. Wilson Guest Celebrant

“Palm Sunday 2022”

The word “Ahoskie”, I am told, means “to listen”. Thank you for inviting me to be with you in Ahoskie to listen to what God might be saying in our hearts.

In Seminary, forty years ago, I had a Homiletics Professor who called preaching "making with the message". Usually I don't preach on Palm Sunday since the service is long enough as it is, but today I break that habit, and “make with a message”. I am retired and at age 75 - there are a lot more years behind me than before me. My death is closer than it ever has been. In fact, since the beginning of this service, I am now a half an hour closer to my death. I don't want to die. I don't know how or when it will happen - could be decades, years, hours; who knows? But it is a reality – as Simon and Garfunkel put it; “That's a fact Jack!”

Writer Dave Eggers, found out about death 40 years ago, when he was 21, when both of his parents died and he was left alone to raise his 8 year old brother. He wrote:

"On the one hand you are so completely bewildered that something so surreal and incomprehensible could happen. At the same time, suddenly the limitations or hesitations that you might have imposed on yourself fall away. There's a weird, optimistic recklessness that could easily be construed as nihilism but is really the opposite. You see that there is a beginning and an end and that you have only a certain amount of time to act. And you want to get started."

Last month Eggers turned 52 years old and after many successes and many mistakes, he is still writing and publishing.

In the same way. Jesus, on Palm Sunday, knows that his death is at hand. Like all of us humans, he does not know when, or how it will be, but when he rides into Jerusalem, he knows it will be just a matter of time. So how does that awareness change what he does and what we do?  What are the things he chooses to do and on what does he no longer waste time?  He makes choices like spending quality time with friends, healing of others, forgiving, speaking truth to power, telling people of his love for them,  saying good- bye. He makes 10 commitments in his final week:

He reminds the community of who and whose they are.

He gathers his community together, washing their feet and feeding his friends with especial focus on bread and wine as outward and visible signs for when he will not be with them.

He reminds them that all human monuments will crumble.

He heals the sick and performs work of mercy.

He confronts the forces of hypocrisy in Religion and governments.

He stands up against injustice.

He is ruthlessly honest in dealing with his enemies.

He forgives outlandishly.

            He is a messenger of Grace.

            He trusts that all things, even death, are redeemed by God.

Anne Lamott wrote: “My deepest belief is that to live as if we’re dying can set us free. Dying people teach you to pay attention and to forgive and not to sweat the small stuff.”

We are now 37 minutes closer since the beginning of the service. “That's a fact Jack!” What does our remaining life look like to each of us?

Palm Sunday 2022

Getting on a donkey, riding for hours,

to say a few words, make some motions,

in the hopes of changing some notions

about how dealing with all the powers,

might bring a sense of meaning to lives;

that every moment is filled with touches

of the Holy; becoming dancers not judges,

before being consigned to dusty archives.

Couple of thousand years later, in same task,

being called to dance to the music of stars

by walking with others; healing some scars,

by singing, listening or daring prayer to ask

our lives might become beacons of light

to all of us walking in darkness into night.

Johnny G.

 

A Reflection for John P. Gualtieri, Jr.                                Thomas E Wilson, Friend

March 1, 1935 - February 28, 2022                                   March 19, 2021

Johnny G.

One of the things about being retired is that there a lot less things that just have to be done; where we have the opportunity to stop being “human doings” and become “Human Beings.” Human Doing is about skipping across the surface of life to reach this or that goal, to get this or that thing or win this or that prize. To be a Human Being is to live deeply into the moment of being and to give thanks for the gift of each moment. There is a wonderland of moments where love is found and heaven is touched, or heaven touches us. We are all touched by the holy.

I knew John Gualtieri only after he had retired and moved down to the Outer Banks, a mere almost 19 years of his almost 87 years of his life walking on this earth. Our walk together began about 2 days after I moved into the house on the Outer Banks, boxes all over the place and John Gualtieri, a man 11 years my senior, who had moved down here from New Jersey about six months before me, shows up with a lawn mover to cut the grass. He came as a neighbor making a friend of a newcomer. I dawdled about accepting the gift, because as the Rector of the Church, you have to be careful about receiving gifts you cannot get even with.

I had been taught in Seminary, and before that as a Counselor and Social Worker, to keep a Professional distance from clients and parishioners; you are not there to take or exploit; but rather to feed not fleece. A Good Rector of a Church remembers that he or she is, first and foremost, a servant of God, and of the members of the Parish and of the community in which he or she is employed. I started the road down away from being a good Rector of All Saints when I accepted his gift. I am reminded of one of the worst Presidents of the United State a century ago , Warren G Harding. It was good, his father once told him, that he hadn't been born a girl, "because you'd be in the family way all the time. You can't say no."

John was one of those people with whom I could never get even. How can I get even with a man who invites Pat and I over to dinner and/or an evening of playing games like Mexican Train, or Oh Hell, hundreds of time in 19 years? How could you get even with a guy who helped me get my annual infant Baptism fix, inflating the numbers with his children and grandchildren dragooned into attendance year after year on Thanksgiving Day services. Or who insisted that I be assured a place at the movable Thanksgiving Feast table even when my place card was set on fire by a candle at the Feast Table. Or, and this is important, that every time I was a guest, he made sure that there was a chilled Martini glass in the freezer and a perfectly mixed pitcher of Martinis cooling in the refrigerator and Never, Never forgetting the stuffed olives.

I was especially thankful of John's gift of reading. John had been a lawyer so he knew how to read laws, contracts, policies, charts and graphs. He could read a room and knew how to help change the emotional temperature in a meeting. He could read people and tell me when I needed to get involved in situations.

For the19 years that we knew each other, John was easy to love, because I didn't need to worry about disappointing him. We had both lived long enough by finding how we didn't to carry around a bunch of stuff we didn't need, like approval and disapproval. Both of us worked with people for decades. The questions we would ask ourselves are; “Is this a person someone that I need to spend time with out of duty, or is this a person I want to be with, in times good or ill, for the sheer joy of being in the presence of something greater than ourselves?”

John could love, love to a depth that was heart breaking. He loved sports which made it unthinkable that he would die before the annual March Madness. The greatest gift he gave me was to love my wife and treat her with respect and honor. He never passed judgment on her. Clergy spouses can be an easy target and his spirit and prayers were always with us during her illnesses. He loved his family and we spent many hours talking about his loving concern for every member of every generation of the Gualtieri clan. Especially, how he loved Maureen, thanking God each day for her. He obsessed about her getting ill for fear that he might have to spend the remaining years alone. There is something about getting older where each moment is too precious to waste. As Shakespeare wrote in Sonnet 73:

This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

In these 19 years, I met a whole bunch of people that I grew to love, trust and share moments of grace and John was one of them. We worked together, prayed together and played together; opening our hearts and lives to each other and to the Holy Space in, between, and beyond us. Some of these people have died. And I prayed for many of them in their dying that they were, alive or dead, in God's love and mine.

One of those last moments being touched by the Holy was being in the Hospital Room with John. I was not there as his professional Priest, but as his friend and, by purely honorary status, as a family member. I leaned forward and put my hand on his blanket on his shoulders. Living into each moment opens up pathways of the millions of other moments we have been given. At that moment I re-lived the touch of my father's hands on my blanketed shoulder as he tucked my brothers and I into our beds. In that moment my father would turn down the lights to listen to our prayers which had the phrase, “If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.” followed by all the blessings. In that moment with John, knowing I was losing a friend in my life, I almost said, “If you should die before you wake I pray the Lord your soul to take!” I didn't and I mumbled some more adult prayer as I commended him to God's grace and followed by blessings for all the ones who loved and would miss him.

The blending of those two moments, the present and past colliding, was a trip back to a time I didn't know a thing about death and loss. I had healthy grandparents; nobody I knew was ever going to die. Then, when I was in the 6^th grade my grandfather, who we knew as “Daddy Wilson”, a legend in our family, as John is in his, died, despite my prayers to keep him alive. We were assured that his soul was in Heaven and we should be thankful. At the funeral my father had some tears; which shocked me for he was the strongest man I knew.

Then another moment collided, and it was me standing at my father's bed in a Hospital room, as I touched his blanketed shoulder and said silent prayers. My father and I walked on the same earth for 19 years before he died, despite my prayers to keep him alive. His death was also the death of my belief in God for awhile. When my father was alive, I disappointed him in so many ways. We argued about so many things; but in the end it always came back to love. Everything is redeemed by love. Some relationships may end or change, or people will die - but the moments live on as long as we live open to moments of grace, touched by the holy.

Johnny G.

Thank you for loving me and my wife,

sharing your soul, leaving us those parts

not as a arithmetic subtraction of hearts,

but as a geometric multiplication of life.

Your soul, always remaining in God's hands,

was also very freely gifted and never taken

away from us by your death, nor forsaken

but bound by unbreakable spiritual bands.

Echoes of your laughter resounding in us

cause memories to be freed from the herd

of all the treasures gifted word by word

by you over these so many moments thus.

Bless you, our brother, for kindness shared,

for you were indeed a gift who truly cared.

Reflections In Lent

A Reflection and Poem for the 2^nd Sunday of Lent                  St. Andrew's Church, Nags Herd, N.C. March 12, 2022                                                                        Thomas E. Wilson, Guest

Genesis 15:1-12,17-18  Philippians 3:17-4:1  Luke 13:31-35  Psalm 27

Reflections In Lent

The first line of the Collect for this 2^nd Sunday of Lent is: “O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy:” Combined with the 1^st lesson from Genesis where God comes to Abram telling him “Be not afraid, I am your shield”.

I have two texts for my reflection for this 2^nd Sunday of Lent, both from young women in their 20's. The first is Etty Hillesum, a Dutch Jewish law student at the beginning of the 2^nd World War. She kept a diary to deal with her depression about the oppression of the Nazi occupiers. in which she tried to find meaning in her life. The dairy was published much later as “An Interrupted Life”. One entry was: “There is a really deep well inside me. And in it dwells God. Sometimes I am there too. But more often stones and grit block the well, and God is buried beneath.”

In her diary, she sometimes talks with God, the ever present well in her life.

“Alas, there doesn’t seem to be much You Yourself can do about our circumstances, about our lives. Neither do I hold You responsible. You cannot help us, but we must help You and defend Your dwelling place inside us to the last.”

She and her family were rounded up in July 1943 and interred in a Dutch Jewish deportation camp, where she had worked there for justice and mercy the previous year for the Jewish Council in helping the internees. She had refused to go into hiding. Her letters and unfinished diaries were smuggled out to a friend to be published if she never returned. She and her family were put on boxcars on a train sent by the Nazis to Auschwitz Concentration Camp on September 7, 1943. Her parents died on the way and she herself was murdered there on November 20, 1943. She never reached 30, but her life was filled with working for justice and mercy. Like Abram in today's lesson from Genesis, she believed what she heard that God would be with her, God was her shield from despair.

Etty's murderers, the Nazis and their sympathizers, also agreed that there was a well, a hole if you will, in each of us; a hole that needs to be filled with enabling narcissistic power and revenge which became their inadequate shield from despair. Many of them were members of Christian churches but they never quite got around to working for justice and mercy. They believed that God was in Heaven and in the churches but not in the well of their hearts.

My 2^nd text is from the 20^th Century spokesperson and cultural prophet, Madonna, in 1984: “ 'Cause we are living in a material world/ And I am a material girl/ You know that we are living in a material world/ And I am a material girl.” The theme of the song is that Each of Us has to be in control of our lives. There is a hole, a well if you will, inside each of us and it needs to be filled with control and stuff. Your stuff and fame can be your shield. Madonna is still recording and this year she will turn 64, and end up like me, on Social Security.

When the song came out in 1984, Madonna was very popular and my 14 year old daughter was singing and dancing to it at our house. It was my first year out of seminary and I was working as an Episcopal Chaplain at Virginia Tech. I was very aware that I was living in a Material World. The students were concerned about what kind of jobs they could get when they graduated. Most of the faculty there were working with the materials of this world and concerned how to get grants and tenure for their careers. The University was booming as it struggled to get a National Research University Center reputation instead of being just a regional technical school. The Football and Basketball teams, the Hokies, were trying to get National Reputations. I was trying to be impressive as a preacher and pastor in my new second career. I thought, as a newly minted Deacon, I was supposed to be on my way up the clerical ladder. I met the person, who many years later would become my wife, and she thought I was full of myself and a real jerk. She was right. There was a God well inside me and I was filling it so full of myself, that my ego and not God, was my shield. My Copernican Moment, when I was to realize that I was not the Center of the Universe, would come later.

In the Gospel story from today's lectionary, Jesus is living in a very material world. The Pharisees warned him that in this material world, the Kings and Emperors had control and Jesus better wake up to the danger. It wasn't just a material world but also an Imperial world.

Let me give you a warning, there will be a lot of politics and Herods for the next few minutes.

The Pharisees were warning Jesus about Herod Antipas, the Tetrarch of Galilee, who was a client flunky ingratiating himself to the Roman occupiers. Herod Antipas' father was Herod the Great, who had been installed as King of Judea, by the Roman Senate as a client King. Herod the Great, the King Herod of the Infancy narratives of Matthew, was terrified of being replaced, so, as the story goes, the news brought from the Wise Men of a new King was frightening. Herod's fear of replacement, before the Magi ever thought of looking at a star, caused Herod the Great to execute two of his sons and one of his wives. Herod believed that his ruthlessness was his shield.

When Herod the Great dies, the Romans divide up Herod's Kingdom into four parts for three of Herod's sons and one of his daughter's. One of the sons, Herod Archelaus was installed by the Romans as Ethnarch of Judea. The term “Ethnarch” means ruler of an ethnic group; it is a step down from being a King. He ruled so badly that the Romans got rid of him. His brother, Herod Antipas, had a greatly reduced role as Tetrarch of Galilee, one quarter of his father's old Kingdom. Antipas, feeling the threat of a downhill spiral, had to act as if he were in control. It was one of the reasons he had John the Baptizer killed. Anyone with a brain living in Galilee, understood that since Antipas was trying so hard to hold on to his position and please his masters, the Romans, that Jesus, the rabble rouser, was expendable. The is the thing about narcissistic people,wannabe tyrants, they want to humiliate people because of their fear of being humiliated.

Herod Antipas makes another appearance in the Gospels at the time of Jesus' trial. Herod is in Jerusalem for Passover and having followed Jesus' career after his escape from Antipas' plans, especially curious about the Miracles, is eager to meet the “Wonder Worker” looking for any advantage. Antipas, however, is not impressed. Narcissistic Tyrants have little imagination for anything other than their own advantage. Antipas sends Jesus back to Pilate in chains. Antipas will later run afoul of the Roman Emperor Caligula, and will be deposed and die in exile.

Herod Antipas' nephew and brother in law was King Herod Agrippa I. Agrippa is a son of the one of the sons killed by his grandfather, Herod the Great. Agrippa was only 3 years old at the time and send to Rome to be raised in Roman households. With the deposition of Antipas, Agrippa was brought in to be the Roman stooge as King. He is the King Herod in the Acts of the Apostles who starts a persecution of the early Christian Church as a way of finding a scapegoat, “an enemy of the people”, to rally the populace behind him and to make his Roman masters happy. He will have Peter jailed who later escapes. Later on in Acts there, is the grisly story of Agrippa I 's death. In that story Agrippa was speaking about how great he was and, as the writer puts it; “immediately an angel of the Lord struck him down, because he did not give God the glory, and he was eaten by worms and breathed his last!"

Herod Agrippa I's son was 17 when his father died and stayed under Claudius' protection in Rome until he was sent to Jerusalem as King Herod Agrippa II to cement Roman Rule. Later on in the Acts of the Apostles, King Herod Agrippa II presides over Paul's trial after Paul claims he cannot be imprisoned because he, Paul, was a Roman Citizen. Agrippa II is the one who is reputed to say that Paul-”almost persuaded” him to believe the Jesus story. However Agrippa II, knowing Paul is innocent, sends Paul to further trial in Rome, doing nothing to stop Paul's troubles. Narcissistic wannabe Tyrants' inner fears keep them from compassion and action against injustice. Agrippa II will be overthrown by the Jewish people in a revolt. Agrippa II will join the Roman military forces under Titus to slaughter the rebels. He will then retire to Rome wiping the blood off his hands and live his years in Peace under the Rule of the Emperors, dying during the reign of Trajan.

All the Herods do not have friends, or family they can trust or invest in - because they only want enablers, people who can help them keep their fear at bay. The Herods all contributed to building the 2^nd Temple and other good public works projects but left the God religious stuff to the Hired Priests at official ceremonies.The Priests and the Herods, all trying desperately to fill up the God well with their own importance inside each of them. By their actions they destroyed the people who they were meant to serve.

That is the way with narcissistic Kings and Queens, Emperors and Empresses, Everyday Rulers, Petty Tyrants and Wannabe Dictators; they spend all their energy trying to hold on to what they have grasped because they are terrified of losing any part of it. They delude themselves in thinking that if they just get more, control people places and things more, then they will be safe and will be able to enjoy life. Except, just as they are beginning to taste peaceful enjoyment, the fear starts to creep in about threats of loss.

“How much is enough?” As in all things material; the more we have- the more we get. The more we get, the more we own. The more we own, the more we fear to lose. There will never be enough and even what we have is unsatisfying to fill up the God well in each of us. As Henri Nowen wrote on a meditation on Hoarding, “The tragedy is what you cling to ends up rotting in your hands.”

Jesus, whose body is fully material, has a God Well constantly being filled. He sees the material world in a different way; the less we hold on to - the more we have the freedom to give. He says, “Blessed are the poor, the meek etc.” He sees the world, and himself, as being filled with the Divine presence of God's spirit. The world and its people are not to be ruled but loved and healed to be free.

The way that God looks at the world is to give guidance and freedom. The way narcissistic Kings, Queens, Emperors, Empresses, Petty Tyrants and Wannabe Dictators ruling over their little empires, sometimes as small as a single family dwelling, authorities in their own presumption, look at their world as ruled by commands, threats and punishments. In that mindset, the only way for others to escape punishment is to leave the Kingdom, Empire and/or house. This is the advice of the Pharisees, for Jesus to hide and keep a low profile; something they themselves had been doing for years, because their God Well was filled with fear of losing their own standing.. Tyrants not only need enablers but they need silence from others who hide the truth. Healing can only began when, like the old fairy tale where the child, telling the truth, points out the Emperor has no clothes.

Jesus tells the Pharisees that the journey for healing and casting out demons will begin by going to Jerusalem. He has work to do; the work of love of giving himself away for the needs of others. Jesus wants to show people, by his words and actions, that there is a life beyond fear. There is a life where our God Wells are constantly monitored to take the trash out to be filled by a power greater than ourselves. That is why we have Lent. It is not a time for felling guilty and bad about ourselves, it is a time to clear and prime the pump of the God Well in each of us, so we and our community can drink deeply from the Underground Spring of God's love; which we are asked to keep flooding out from our hearts to work for justice and mercy and to give ourselves away. As God, whose glory is always to have mercy, says to Abram and us, “Don't be afraid! I am your shield.”

Reflections in Lent

Looking in the mirror, there is this tyrant wannabe

checking us out; asking “Sport, how you doing?

You know that a time might come of you rueing

the passing up the chance for a new reality?

All you have to do is to grab and hold on.

Don't let anything go slipping through fingers,

cause you know - the smell of failure lingers,

where your once admirers look at you and yawn.”

“Play it safe! Play it safe! Fate's out to get you;

just look at what happened to the one before,

who didn't clutch on tight enough to the store

of all the things number one holds dear and true.”

But mirrors having no depth; so there is no well

empty enough for mercy's water to flow and dwell.

Beth Secules: The Woman With The Smile In Her Voice

 For a number of years, the O' Brians, Wilsons and Secules would meet once a week for dinner and a time of honest spiritual sharing and laughter. The three Toms would meet and Kay, Pat and Beth would meet for spiritual check ins. It was a way of keeping spiritually sane.

 Poem and Reflection for the life of Elizabeth (Beth) Humrickhouse Secules

On the Occasion of a Celebration of Her Life                        All Saints, Southern Shores, NC

December 18, 2021                                                                 Thomas E Wilson

The Woman With The Smile In Her Voice

I first met Beth Secules in the spring of 2003 when I was serving at a Parish where I had promised I would stay at least 5 years. That deadline had come and so I polished up my resume, updated my file at the Church Deployment Office and cast that bread upon the waters. Pat and I did visits to other places, but after many discouraging months it dawned on me that God maybe wanted me to remain where I was as my time in the wilderness.

Then, I got this inquiry from a church on the Outer Banks, asking me to respond in writing to a series of questions. Without enthusiasm, I wrote my answers down and sent them back. Soon came a phone call from a nice lady who wanted to set up a phone interview with the search committee. The night of the scheduled interview, I mixed my Martini and waited for the call.

The Committee was apparently sitting at a table with a speaker phone at the center of the table, sometimes I could hear some of them lean across the table in order to speak louder. Each member spoke, somewhat loudly, towards the microphone as I wrote each name and a comment of the voice on a chart.The chair had a solemn voice suggesting this was serious business. I wrote his name down on a chart, “Jack Mann” and “Chair” and “Serious” as he introduced himself. Some voices were all business- “this is a important job”, they seemed to say by their tone. Some seemed kind, a couple were tired. Then, this soft welcoming voice with a hint of a smile purred that her name was Beth and I could almost hear the “L” sound in her last name, which I later learned was Secules, but I wrote down Beth -dash- L.

I looked at the words, sounded out as “Bethel” and I remembered that Jacob in the Hebrew Testament where he awakens from his dream and says “Surely this is “Bethel - the place where God dwells.” “Bethel”, and that David comes from the town of Bethlehem and where Jesus was born in that place named “The place of Bread.” I write down “bread” and “dwelling of God”. My hearing of this word is what Carl Jung called a “synchronicity”- “where circumstances that appear meaningfully related yet lack a causal connection”. I call them God moments. That was the moment I relaxed, when I realized that this was a time I was going to be fed with God's presence. This was not just a job interview but a holy space. The ice melted in the leftover martini, for I had all the spirit I needed. Beth asked a question about a flippant answer I gave to one of the written questions. She asked because she was interested in knowing me beyond the inadequate answer that I had written.

Months later, during the in person interviews at the Outer Banks, I met the woman behind the voice with the smile. That smile was not just in her voice or on her face but in her whole being. At the end of that round of interviews as Pat and I were to head back to the other church, we were given a small loaf of homemade bread, which was the practice the church had for visitors to the church; another God moment slid into place. This was a place where the Bread of Christ was not in short supply.

We returned to accept the calling, buy a house and make a home on the Outer Banks. I should say we made many homes in that parish and the Secules house was such a home where we felt at home with the woman with the smile in her voice and her beloved Tom.

We did not know her when she was a teacher, dealing with difficult students, or Coach Secules' wife cheering him and his teams on. I think the smile was in her voice even in what might have seemed defeats. For her, every challenge bravely faced was a victory no matter the score.

That smile in her voice was especially there whenever she finished talking with her children or their families on the phone; even when she asked for prayers about what they might be facing in their lives. The only time I did not hear the smile when she and Tom reacted to the news that their son did not have his contract renewed from his Pro-football team. You could do anything to them, but you do not mess with her kids! The smile returned as she and Tom called their son to give him encouragement.

That smile was in the voice even when she was facing trying times, like when she would head up the baked goods tables at the madness of the annual Holly Days Bazaar. Her room was indeed “Bethlehem” -a place of bread and cookies and cakes and scones and so much more. It had Beth's smile.

That smile was in her voice even when her tears came with the coming of her illness, even when her tears came when her beloved Tom was dying, even when she herself was at the hospital on the last day of her life. The smile was not about a cozy happiness but about joy. Happiness is when circumstances combine to make life easier, but joy comes from an ingrained sense of thanksgiving. No matter what this world throws at us, we can choose to respond with a joy in thanksgiving for God's presence and strength given. I translate Psalm 30:5 as:

“While desolation endureth but a moment;

               in God's favor is life:

weeping may endure for a night,

              but joy cometh in the morning.”

Beth, the woman with the smile in her voice, understood that resurrection is not only what happens after we die, but is also what happens each day as we live into an abundant life every day of our lives on earth. We come together today because we still want to hear an echo of the joy of that smile in her voice in our hearts.

The Woman With The Smile In Her Voice

Writing down “Beth” to a disembodied welcome,

meaning what? A dwelling place for God or bread? 

Yet, she seems to be really listening to what I said,

which I hoped would continue in the weeks to come.

Finally, I met the woman behind the embodied smile,

which even persisted underneath rounds of chaos

beyond our control, but not beyond Holy presence,

giving her strength through journeys of many a mile.

How fortunate we were, we recipients of love given,

even when we did not deserve it, for love was a gift

freely given, not based on approval or relation's rift,

but flowing before we're even asking to be forgiven.

Hearing a smile in any voice is a proof we can tell,

when someone has lived and loved fully and well.

Vic James

 

A Reflection and Poem for the Celebration of the Life of Howard Victor (Vic) James

November 13, 3021         All Saints, Southern Shores, N.C.          Thomas E. Wilson

Vic James

As I tried to get my thoughts together for today, was struck with the Gospel lesson for last Sunday from John's Gospel on the Raising of Lazarus into a new life. The lesson ends with Jesus telling us, his followers, to unbind the dead person and set them free. There are two deaths we have to go through in this life. One is the death of ourselves as the center of universe. This is when get rid of the bindings of selfishness, and bitterness and get rid of the graven, and craven, image of the faraway Old Man Above the Sky, in order to become alive to the Holy who lives in the space in and between us and our neighbor and the Universe seeing all as a place of blessings. That is a death we sometimes need to go through several time a day. The second death is when our bodies die, removing all the boundaries between us and the Holy. This is the 2^nd death for Vic, on May the 5^th of this year.

 I was helped by a second passage of scripture which was from the Psalm for today, Psalm 46:5 “There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, * the holy habitation of the Most High.” I found a way into a metaphor for Vic's first death.

Decades ago, I lived in a valley cut between two hills on the banks of a river in Upstate New York. In the summer I would swim in it, in the fall I would canoe in it, in the winter I would skate on its frozen surface, and in the spring, I would be in awe of the floods of the melting ice and snow making the fields rich for planting a garden. I went to church and memorized creeds and prayers, but whenever I wanted to get close to God, I would go the river. Years later when I would get so busy and far away from the Holy, I would retreat to sing an anonymous song: “Peace is flowing like a river, flowing out from you and me, flowing out into the desert, setting all the captives free.”

Being with Vic James was being on the banks of a river. Like the River, he had depths underneath the calm surface. Like the River, he nourished those he was with. Like the River, he had to keep adapting. Like the River he has pollution and abuse dumped on him, yet he kept on flowing. Like the River, he made glad the city of God living in him. Like the River, he generously bestowed blessings. Like the river, he absorbed the attacks, for he was bigger than the attackers. Like the River, he was made up of many tears and life. Like the River, you could count on him. Like the River, many times he was silent, and you knew he was listening, floating with you. Like the River, he was loyal. Like the River, I could count on him.

I have not seen that River in Upstate New York since my last high school reunion years ago, but it's Spirit is still flowing within me. It has been several years since I last saw my friend Vic James, but his Spirit still flows in my soul, flowing out into my deserts, helping set this captive free. Thanks be to God!

Vic James

Bindings come in many shapes and sizes,

there are those physical ones of course,

of hand and body or harnessing of horse;

but then there are the emotional surprises.

Those times when that old anger holds,

binding us hostage to the once upon hurt,

hanging on to us, rubbing our noses in dirt,

keeping minds captive, wrecked on shoals.

Vic became free of that hectoring time within,

by spending time helping others put down as kids

quietly, non-judging, unbinding, until he or she rids

themselves to forgive, for life's too short for them.

Forgiving is not forgetting, but peace replacing

all the bindings, setting free for love embracing.