I am a flower quickly fading (here today and gone tomorrow)
A wave tossed in the ocean, a vapor in the wind.
Still you hear me when I’m calling; Lord, you catch me when I’m falling,
And you’ve told me who I am: I am yours. (Casting Crowns)
…Listening In…
The woman said, “I know that the Messiah is coming, the one who is called the Christ. When he comes, he will teach everything to us.” Jesus said to her, “I Am–the one who speaks with you.” (John 4:25-26; context)
…Filling Up…
Jesus is exhausted. He is worn out from his travels, so he sends the disciples into town to get some lunch. Then he sits down, props his back up against the warm bricks of a well, and takes a nap. Soon a woman comes to draw water, and Jesus asks her for a drink. This is strange for two reasons. First, in his society, unacquainted men and women didn’t converse with one another in public. Second, Jesus wasn’t in his own land, and this woman was from a people – the Samaritans – that Jesus’ people didn’t deal with.
Of course, Jesus doesn’t usually hold to social conventions. So, he asks her for a drink, and they get to talking about all sorts of stuff – the water in the well, a special kind of life-giving water that Jesus will give her, the woman’s marital status, the proper places to pray. The woman is impressed with Jesus, but perhaps a bit scared of him, of what he knows about her. Jesus continues talking about prayer and the right way to worship, and the woman seems to lose track of his train of thought. But then she surprises him by saying: “I know that the Messiah is coming, the one who is called the Christ. When he comes, he will teach everything to us.”
I imagine Jesus, who has probably entered “preaching mode,” stopping in mid-sentence. This woman knows more than she lets on. Of this Messiah, he says, “I am he, the one who speaks to you.” Except that he doesn’t say, “I am he.” He says simply, “I Am.” In these two words, Jesus opens up to this woman and to us that fact that his identity is divine. This week, we are looking at these two words – at what they mean for Jesus and at what they mean for us.
…Praying For…
Dear God, you teach me new things everyday. You teach me about myself, about your world, and about you. Thank you for giving me the ability to learn and grow into the identity you have chosen for me; in Jesus Christ’s name. Amen.
…Sending Out…
I leave this moment with you, God, knowing that you are the foundation of all creation. I exist because you have spoken and loved me into existence.
(Sermon for Sunday, September 30, 2012 || Proper 21B || Mark 9:38-50 )
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Paramount, 1989)
The floor of the ancient structure splits open, revealing a gaping chasm. Nazi sympathizer Elsa, the treacherous blonde bombshell, who earlier in the film skewers the heart of our hero Indiana Jones, falls in, only to be caught at the last second by Indy. But he has a dubious grip on her gloved hand and, over the next tenuous seconds, his grip starts slipping. If only she would reach up with her other hand. But no. The Holy Grail has also fallen into the chasm and is even now perched on a ledge mere inches from Elsa’s reach. “I can’t hold you,” shouts Indy. “Give me your other hand!”
“I can reach it,” she screams back, all the while groping for the cup. “Give me your other hand,” Indy shouts again. Another pulse-pounding moment flies by, punctuated by the an eerie silence in the glorious John Williams score. Elsa reaches a final time for the Grail. And then she’s gone. She falls, screaming as she goes, and vanishes into the mist that obscures the endlessness of the chasm.
Indy stares after her, but he has only a moment to grieve because the floor buckles again, and Indy finds himself thrown into the chasm. His father, Henry, slides across the floor just in time to catch Indy’s hand, but his grip is just as dubious as Indy’s had been moments before. Of course, the Grail is still perched on the ledge. Indy has longer arms than Elsa. “I can get it. I can almost reach it,” says Indy.
Then Henry, who has spent his entire life chasing the legend of the Grail, calls his son’s name: “Indiana,” he says, and then again with more gravity, as only Sean Connery can. “Indiana.” Indy looks up and their eyes lock. “Let it go,” says Henry, “Let it go.” Indy doesn’t give the Grail another look, but instead flings his arm up. Henry grasps both of Indy’s hands in a tight grip, and a moment later they are running from the ancient structure, soon to ride off into the sunset.
This scene from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade flawlessly illustrates what Jesus is trying to tell his disciples in today’s Gospel lesson. Now, every commentary I read about the passage made sure to note just how harsh Jesus sounds in all the talk about cutting off body parts and going to hell, so I’d bet that my reading of Jesus’ words a minute ago made us all a bit squeamish.
And for good reason. I think Jesus is going for far more than squeamish. His disciples have demonstrated time and again that they just can’t grasp the kind of life that Jesus is trying to teach them to live. As their utter thickness becomes more apparent, Jesus gropes for more and more outlandish imagery in an attempt to reach them.
Jesus has tried telling them point blank what’s going to happen. He has tried the object lesson of putting a child among them. He has even been transfigured into a dazzling being. And yet the disciples still try to dissuade Jesus from his chosen path, they try to figure out which of them is the best, and they try to stop someone not in their group from doing Jesus’ work. Finally, Jesus has had enough. “Listen up,” he says. “If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire.”
Here’s another way to read this same verse: “If your hand causes you to separate yourself from God, then separate yourself from your hand instead. If your goal is to live the kind of abundant life that God yearns for you to live, then you would be better off having only one hand than to have two and wind up in the refuse dump, where they burn trash all day long.”
Jesus reiterates the same point using feet and eyes, and I imagine the disciples stand there dumbfounded and maybe a little sick to their stomachs. But perhaps Jesus’ point has finally hit home. There are so many things in our lives that we cling to, which impede us from living the kind of abundant life that God yearns for us to live. Therefore, we have a choice. We can choose the impediment, as Elsa does in the movie when she reaches and reaches for the Grail, only to fall to her death. Or we can cut ourselves off from the impediment, as Indiana Jones does when he ignores the Grail in favor his father’s strong grasp.
Jesus makes his point in a visceral, ugly way, but that seems to be the only way his disciples will hear him. The severed hand and foot and the torn out eye are parts of ourselves that seem integral, but you know what? Life can go on without them. Of course, Jesus only uses these bodily features to make his point. Physical body parts are not what cause us to separate ourselves from God. So the question is: what does? What about our choices or our actions or our way of looking at the world does separate us from God? What part of ourselves do we continually and erroneously reach for, even when our grip on God is failing?
I can’t answer these questions for you. I can only answer them for myself. And there are so many things that I should amputate from my life in order to participate more fully in my relationship with God. My anxiety is one – I know I should trust God enough to let go of my fears for the future and my stress for today, but I’m so used to feeling anxious that I tell myself I don’t know what would happen if I asked God finally to sever anxiety from my life. To tell you the truth, I do know what would happen. I’d find a more abundant, more peaceful life. So why do I keep reaching for the Grail of anxiety? Because I always have, and the inertial force of complacency is a strong foe.
Anxiety is one. Pride is another old standby. Apathy. The craving for security, which leads to chances never being taken. Perhaps the thing that Jesus calls you to amputate is on my list, or perhaps your list is full of other cancerous impediments that would best be excised like tumors rather than clung to like pieces of wreckage in a storm-tossed sea.
Jesus’ strong, visceral language in today’s passage is a wake-up call to the disciples and to us that the barriers we erect between us and God do nothing but hurt us and keep us from living the kind of abundant life that God yearns for all people to live. The good news is this. As we continue to reach for our favorite impediment, for our Grail perching so tantalizingly on the ledge just out of reach, God is clinging to our other hand, clinging with a grasp that will never slip. And God is whispering, “Let it go. Let it go.”
The glory of God is the human being fully alive. (St. Irenaeus)
…Listening In…
Many people say, “We can’t find goodness anywhere. The light of your face has left us, LORD!” But you have filled my heart with more joy than when their wheat and wine are everywhere! (Psalm 4:6-7; context)
…Filling Up…
In the times when we feel fully alive, it’s a really good idea to thank God for such times. Now, we can feel fully alive without attributing the fullness to God. After all, I don’t think God necessarily seeks the credit for what God does. But besides the fact that it’s a good idea to thank God for God’s movement during our experiences of fullness (after all, if your mother fills you up with the best steak and potatoes you’ve ever eaten, it’s just good manners to say, “Thank you”), there is another reason to do so.
When we attribute our times of fullness to the presence of our Creator, we actively train ourselves to be on the lookout for God in the moments when God is easiest to see. For most of us, I’d imagine that God is easiest to see in the fullness – the sunrise over the ocean that I mentioned on Tuesday. Or holding the newborn, which I seem to keep coming back to.
This training is so important because it helps us to notice God’s movement in the rougher times, in the valleys, in the moments when the trials and tribulations of this world shield us from being aware of God in our midst. God is present in our fullness and when we feel empty. We just have a harder time noticing God in the latter. But when we use the full times to train ourselves, we can find God more readily when times are tough.
Too often, people start seeking God when their lives have hit a downward spiral. But this is like waiting to go to the doctor after you are sure you are sick rather than for regular checkups. Practicing noticing God’s presence when we feel fully alive equips us to continue seeking that presence when a thousand little deaths have taken our fullness away.
I hope, then, that you will look for God’s presence when you feel fully alive. Celebrate the reality that God is the foundation of that fullness. And when you feel empty, draw on the memory of your fullness so that you know where to look to find your Creator.
…Praying For…
Dear God, source of all life, help me to notice your presence during the full times so that I may more easily notice that presence in the lean ones. In Jesus Christ’s name I pray. Amen.
…Sending Out…
I leave this moment with you, God, rejoicing that you constantly yearn to draw me more deeply and more fully into life.
The glory of God is the human being fully alive. (St. Irenaeus)
…Listening In…
Then Jesus took the bread. When he had given thanks, he distributed it to those who were sitting there. He did the same with the fish, each getting as much as they wanted.When they had plenty to eat, he said to his disciples, “Gather up the leftover pieces, so that nothing will be wasted.” So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves that had been left over by those who had eaten. (John 6:11-13; context)
…Filling Up…
Whenever we feel fully alive, God’s presence is not far away. In fact, it is so near us that we might have trouble recognizing it for what it is, like when you see a super magnified picture of a button or a bit of Velcro, but can’t readily identify either. (One of the question types in the game Cranium is about that, I think.)
If we believe that God is the foundation for all fullness of life, then it just makes sense to start looking for God whenever we feel fully alive. If you feel fully alive after the hike up the mountain, then, when you’ve paused at the peak to look at the patchwork valley, remember to give thanks to God for the opportunity to hike and the breathtaking view. If you feel fully alive after holding the newborn baby, give thanks to God for each piggy little toe and for the indescribable scent of the top of the infant’s head – the scent of new life.
Notice that the best way to invite God into the fullness that God created in the first place is to give thanks for it. When we offer our thanksgiving to God, we not only show our appreciation for these full moments of life, we also put ourselves in proper relationship with God. The act of thanksgiving reminds us that we didn’t create the fullness. We merely participated in it. We are on the field playing the game, but God created the field, invented the equipment, and made up the game, as well.
When Jesus feeds the five thousand people, he give thanks before breaking the meager offering of bread. This act of giving thanks is the key to the story. By giving thanks, Jesus acknowledged God’s presence in that gathering. Then Jesus proceeds to give the bread and give it some more and give it even more until everyone there was full. Thanksgiving opens our eyes to God moving when we feel fully alive.
And this trains us to notice God when we don’t. More on that tomorrow.
…Praying For…
Dear God, source of all life, you instill in me the desire to thank you for every gift you have given to me, including all the moments when I feel your fullness. Help me always to offer those moments back to you with gratitude. In Jesus Christ’s name I pray. Amen.
…Sending Out…
I leave this moment with you, God, rejoicing that you constantly yearn to draw me more deeply and more fully into life.
The glory of God is the human being fully alive. (St. Irenaeus)
…Listening In…
Yes, goodness and faithful love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the Lord’s house as long as I live. (Psalm 23:6; context)
…Filling Up…
Yesterday, I asked you to think about a time when you felt fully alive. And judging by my own reflection on that question, I then wondered about how often our feelings of “full life” intersect with our awareness of God’s movement. So I’ll begin today with a premise and we’ll go from there. The premise is this: God is the foundation of all fullness of life.
Wait just a second, you say: what about those destructive instances you mentioned yesterday? Right, I’m glad you brought that up. Destructive forces like drugs and alcohol simulate true fullness (or they just keep you from caring), and thus keep us from pursuing the healthy, good ways to reach fullness. Other destructive forces give us something akin to fullness by taking it away from someone else. Therefore, fullness is also simulated in these cases because what we perceive as fullness is someone else’s emptiness, and thus when you add them together, it’s a wash.
So, you cannot find true fullness through chemical stimulation, nor through taking someone else’s fullness away. And with that, we return to our premise that God is the foundation of all fullness of life. Now we must ask ourselves, “On what is this premise founded?” Well, like all other things having to do with God, the premise is founded (when you get right down to it) on God alone. Yes, God is the foundation of the foundation. But let’s move a few rungs up the ladder just so you don’t think I’m dodging the question.
My own life of faith has brought me to these thoughts today: All life comes from God because God created and is creating everything that is, has been, or will be. God yearns for all life to find the fullest potential for which God created it. Other species find this potential when they do the things that they do best of all, the things that they just seem to be created to do. God created us humans to love God and be reflections of God’s love in this world. We realize our fullest potential when we participate in God’s movement in our lives, which always seems to play out in such a way as to make us better at loving. Therefore, God is the foundation for all fullness of (human) life.
When we feel fully alive, the best thing we can do is to try to become aware of how God is moving in that fullness. But that’s a topic for tomorrow.
…Praying For…
Dear God, source of all life, you yearn for all of your creation to participate in the fullness of your grand design. Help me to be aware of your presence and to give thanks for the fullness you shower up me. In Jesus Christ’s name I pray. Amen.
…Sending Out…
I leave this moment with you, God, rejoicing that you constantly yearn to draw me more deeply and more fully into life.
The glory of God is the human being fully alive. (St. Irenaeus)
…Listening In…
Praise the LORD! Let my whole beingpraise the LORD! I will praise the LORD with all my life; I will sing praises to my God as long as I live. (Psalm 146:1-2; context)
…Filling Up…
My question is this: when have you ever felt fully alive? I ask because I’m really curious.
I assume that many answers will tread the path of the natural and the poetic. Perhaps you felt fully alive when the sun first peaked from under the ocean’s blanket and bathed you in the newness of dawn; or when you reached the peak of the mountain after a long hike and now you see the patchwork farmland stretching for miles in the valley below; or when you went outside on the first truly cold day of the year, saw your breath, and felt the chill air sting your cheeks until they turned rosy red.
Or might the answers wander a more relational path? Perhaps you felt fully alive when you first ventured to hold the hand of your crush, and (how incredible!) your crush held your hand in return; or when you scored the game-winning run and your team swarmed you at home plate, lifted you onto their shoulders, and chanted your name; or when you held a new baby for the first time and counted her tiny toes or offered your finger for him to hold onto with his tiny hand.
Or might the answers walk along the path of “what if”? You feel fully alive in the moments after narrowly avoiding a collision with another car. What if you hadn’t reacted so quickly? Or maybe you feel fully alive after a nasty bout of flu and you’re finally up and about. What if you had gotten sicker instead of better?
Or might the answers go down a destructive path? You feel fully alive only when you’re high or drunk; or when you’re racing down a straight road at midnight going 100 mph; or after fighting with your girlfriend just because you like the energy of conflict.
There are so many answers to the question; truly, they could fill volume upon volume. But I wonder how many of us would answer the question by bringing God into it? Might our answers travel the path of God’s movement? We’ll pick up that question tomorrow.
…Praying For…
Dear God, source of all life, help me to see what brings me the feeling of fullness in my life, and grant me the grace to see how you are moving in that fullness. In Jesus Christ’s name I pray. Amen.
…Sending Out…
I leave this moment with you, God, rejoicing that you constantly yearn to draw me more deeply and more fully into life.
The glory of God is the human being fully alive. (St. Irenaeus)
…Listening In…
The days of a human life are like grass: they bloom like a wildflower; but when the wind blows through it, it’s gone; even the ground where it stood doesn’t remember it. (Psalm 103:15-16; context)
…Filling Up…
In a few moments, I’m going to ask you an odd question, so I feel the need to prepare you for it first. Perhaps, the preparation will make the question seem less odd; only these intervening paragraphs will tell. Because I am in the act of typing this and (in an indeterminate number of temporal increments down the timeline) you are in the act of reading it, I feel quite confident in diagnosing both of us as “alive.”
Now, of course, you might have jumped out of the pages of a scifi/fantasy novel and thus might not be alive, but if that were the case, I imagine you’d be out looking for brains or thralls or something and not reading this reflection. But I digress.
So we are both alive. But I wonder what we really mean when we claim this. I am biologically alive because my respiratory system is working to bring air into my lungs, which then oxygenate my blood, which then travels to my heart, which then pumps it out into my organs, which then continue their never-ending routine. When these organs and systems cease functioning, I will no longer be alive.
But there must be more to being alive than the complex machinery of my body working in concert with the fuel that I ingest to keep the machine running. Biological life – the fact that I am a semi-autonomous organic construct that responds to some sort of stimuli – must only be one part of what makes me alive or else I wouldn’t have ever thought to reflect on it.
And this brings us to the quotation above from St. Irenaeus, who lived during the 100s in what is modern-day France. “The glory of God is the human being fully alive.” In our discussion of biological life, it would seem that being alive is one half of a binary state. We are either alive or dead. But if we take what Irenaeus says seriously, it would seem that life could be lived with more or less fullness, and the fuller a life is lived, the more of God’s glory is shone.
So my question is this: when have you ever felt fully alive?
…Praying For…
Dear God, source of all life, thank you for creating the perfect set of circumstances for life to flourish on this planet and for the circumstances that have transpired to make me the person I am. In Jesus Christ’s name I pray. Amen.
…Sending Out…
I leave this moment with you, God, rejoicing that you constantly yearn to draw me more deeply and more fully into life.
Oh, help me, God! For thou alone
Canst my distracted soul relieve.
Forsake it not: it is thine own,
Though weak, yet longing to believe. (Anne Brontë)
…Listening In…
I love you, O Lord my strength, O Lord my stronghold, my crag, and my haven. My God, my rock in whom I put my trust, my shield, the horn of my salvation, and my refuge; you are worthy of praise. (Psalm 18:1-2)
…Filling Up…
God is the One in whom we can always rest our weight. God is the One who never fails to keep a promise. Therefore, God is the one whom we can always believe. When we reserve the word “believe” for God alone, we can begin to recapture the majesty that the concept of belief has lost through overuse in unworthy situations.
If believing is about resting your weight on something, then belief means knowing and trusting the something that takes your weight. This is your foundation. Every foundation that is not God is not a foundation at all, but a structure built on God, who is the ultimate foundation. God is, so to speak, the ground upon which everything rests. Believing in God is all about not being content until you find that ground, that deepest foundational level, upon which to rest your weight.
Through metaphors about rocks and strongholds, the people who wrote the Bible express this understanding of God being the foundation. At the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus expresses this same understanding when he tells the story about two people, one who built a house on sand and the other who built a house on rock. Of course, the house built on the rock weathers the storm. The next time you use the word “believe,” ask yourself if the context surrounding that word is your rock and your foundation. If not, I invite you to try a different word.
…Praying For…
Dear God, you are my rock and my foundation. You are the ground on which I walk, the One walking with me, and the One to whom I am destined. Help me believe in you so that I may see your road laid out beneath me; in Jesus Christ’s name. Amen.
…Sending Out…
I leave this moment with you, God, knowing that you are the foundation of all truth. You believe in me, which allows me to believe in you.
Oh, help me, God! For thou alone
Canst my distracted soul relieve.
Forsake it not: it is thine own,
Though weak, yet longing to believe. (Anne Brontë)
…Listening In…
After eight days his disciples were again in a house and Thomas was with them. Even though the doors were locked, Jesus entered and stood among them. He said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here. Look at my hands. Put your hand into my side. No more disbelief. Believe!” (John 20:26-27; context)
…Filling Up…
On Monday, I mentioned that belief is a tricky concept. It’s tricky for several reasons. Here’s one. Yesterday, I used the image of jumping into a parent’s arms on your first visit to the pool. You jumped because you believed what your parent said. He or she would catch you, no matter what. Equating this belief with belief in God is where everything gets tricky. Here’s the problem.
There is a chance, however slim, that your parent would fail to catch you.
No matter how earnestly we believed in a parent’s infallibility or a coach’s perfection or a teacher’s omniscience, those people turned out to be…well, people. They were all stricken with the gene for human failure. Of course, not being perfect didn’t make them bad people. It just made them people. When we equate our belief in humans with our belief in God, we often make the mistake of hedging our bets were God is concerned. We apply to God the expectations we have when we believe in other people, thus unwittingly reducing God’s power and glory to the levels that fit comfortably in a human body.
Now, please don’t misunderstand. I’m not telling you to cut off all human contact because those fallible humans are not to be trusted. Human beings are fundamentally good. We usually do the right thing. We usually live up to the trust others have in us. What I am saying is this: there is no “usually” with God. God always does the right thing. God always lives up to the trust we place in God. So when you speak of belief, remember that God is the One in whom you can always rest your weight.
…Praying For…
Dear God, you are present in my life and you are constantly breathing creation into being: help me to believe in you so that I may see your movement in my life and help others to see your movement in theirs; in Jesus Christ’s name. Amen.
…Sending Out…
I leave this moment with you, God, knowing that you are the foundation of all truth. You believe in me, which allows me to believe in you.
Oh, help me, God! For thou alone
Canst my distracted soul relieve.
Forsake it not: it is thine own,
Though weak, yet longing to believe. (Anne Brontë)
…Listening In…
Unbelief is as much a choice as belief is. What makes it in many ways more appealing is that whereas to believe in something requires some measure of understanding and effort, not to believe doesn’t require much of anything at all. (Frederick Buechner)
…Filling Up…
As we discovered yesterday with the story about the farmer in the Amazon River basin, to believe in something is to rest all of your weight on that something. Think about the first time you ever went to the pool. The older kids who knew how to swim were doing cannonballs into the deep end and playing Marco Polo in the shallows. The teenage boys were casting furtive glances at the lifeguard in her red one-piece, sunglasses, and layers of tanning lotion. The adults were laying in reclining lawn chairs around the edge of the pool, far enough away to be out of the splash zone.
But you took no notice of any of this. You were too busy contemplating your next action. You were standing by the edge of the pool, your toes curled over the cement lip of the shallow end. You had your arms crossed in front of you and your knees bent in. Your teeth chattered – from either fear or cold, you couldn’t tell. And there was your Dad standing three feet from you. He was standing waist deep in the water like a titan, impervious to Poseidon’s attempts to plunge him under. And he was extending his arms out to you, beckoning you to jump. He would catch you, of course, he said. You would not drown. You would be safe. You would have fun once you got used to the water. All you needed to do was jump into his arms.
You had a choice to make. You could waddle back to the safety of the towels and the bag with your older sister’s change of clothes in it. Or you could jump, believing with all your might that your Dad would catch you, that you could rest all of your weight in his embrace.
…Praying For…
Dear God, I believe that you hold your hands out to catch me whenever I begin to fall. Help me to remember that when I take a leap of faith, you are both the water into which I plunge and the hands that help me float. In Jesus Christ’s name I pray. Amen.
…Sending Out…
I leave this moment with you, God, knowing that you are the foundation of all truth. You believe in me, which allows me to believe in you.
…Opening To…
Where the Wind... 