You can relax now

Luke 12:13-21

I don’t know about you, but I am so completely sick of everything always being up in the air. Of having to react and respond all the time. Of not being able to make plans and set those plans in place and count on those plans happening.  If not actual control, I would like to have back the illusion of control. Please.   

The rich man in Jesus’ parable has the illusion of control. He is blessed with an abundance of crops and decides to tear down his barns and build bigger ones to store them all and then finally he will have enough, and then, “I will say to my soul, Soul, You can relax now…”

 

And oh my goodness does this grab me. What would it take to be able to say, Soul, you can relax now? Would you say it when you finally have “enough” money saved? When you have reached a high enough level of education? Progressed far enough in your job? When kids are finally settled and successful? 

When you’ve achieved all your goals for self-improvement and enlightenment, then you can say, Soul, you can relax now?  How about, the mortgage and student loans are all completely paid off, the dream job has been achieved, you’re contributing to real and lasting change in the world as a force for goodness, everybody thinks good things about you and nobody dislikes or distrusts you, your body is a specimen of good health and guaranteed longevity, and your impact, memory and legacy is cemented for several generations. Now you can relax, soul.  Now you can finally live and just enjoy your life! 

 

Oh wait, let’s add some more, Democracy is secure, racism is vanquished, the climate crisis is remedied, now can our souls relax?

 

How about when we do have times we’ve accomplished a goal or reached a milestone, and we feel some sense of inner peace because the hard work we’ve invested has paid off, or friends and family are generally doing well and life seems to be on a good track.  Not perfect, but humming along fair enough.  It feels good to feel this way. Not unlike the man in Jesus’ parable, (who then illustrates that even that doesn’t feel like enough). And as Jesus reminds us, any and all of that can disappear at any moment. Anything can happen to anyone. Like, a global pandemic from the movies could engulf the entire globe for years, or something.  And then the illusion that we have any control over anything is short-lived.

 

This is one of those moments when the lectionary fails us. Because it separates out scripture that make more sense if kept together.

 

This rich man in Jesus’ parable is so often held up as a foil, a ridiculous, greedy fool. (My bible subtitles this pericope "The Parable of the Rich Fool").  We like to use him to remind ourselves not to get greedy and then move on.  But the story doesn’t stop right here. Jesus turns to the disciples and points underneath the pretend rich man’s striving, to the core of him, because it’s the core of all of us. Just like this man, we are all trying to quell that inner terror that things might not be ok. We all worry for our future, our safety, our loved ones, all the time, and our ability to live our lives with a sense of peace is so often dependent on how all these things and people are doing at the moment.  The rich man is seeking a feeling of security. An escape from the worry. The ability to enjoy life and not live in fear. Aren’t we all?

 

The passage continues with these words,
He said to his disciples, ‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! 

And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.

 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith! 

And do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying. 

For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, strive for his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.

 

Around here we remind each other that worrying is practicing fear, and resting is practicing trust.  We let go of worry not by talking ourselves out of it with logic, or by somehow controlling all the external factors around us so that we can finally be at rest inside.  

 

Into our worry, Jesus gives us a very concrete invitation –Look at the birds. Consider the lilies. Notice the beauty permeating it all. Right here in the world around us is evidence of God’s care. God who made and cares for this earth and its creatures values and treasures you, loves you.  

Instead of striving for your own security and wellbeing, Jesus says, point your being toward God’s reality, where we all belong inextricably to each other and to God, and we are here to care for one another and for this world. 

When you let go your attempting to make your own life secure, and return to this reality that the source of all life is holding your live in love, then the inner peace, the sense of deeper grounding, will come to you as a gift from God.  

 

James Finley talks about this in his podcast, Turning to the Mystics. He says our inner peace is so often dependent on conditions being conducive to peace. So when our family is healthy and things are going well in our lives we have peace. But when the condition are not conducive to peace, there is conflict, suffering, war, racism, then we do not have peace. So we try to change the conditions that are not conducive to peace, so that we can have inner peace. And we should do those things- we should address what is wrong in the world and in our lives. But the peace we are offered in Christ is not peace that is dependent on the conditions being conducive to peace. It’s God’s peace, given to us, regardless of the circumstances. And we can experience it even in the midst of great darkness and suffering, because it does not depend on the conditions being a certain way, it's deeper than that. And this peace actually allows us to be able to be present to the circumstances in a different way, in fact, to be with people in suffering and struggle more intentionally, and to bear those things ourselves, because the peace we have is not our own peace, it is God's. And it is not dictated by fluctuating circumstances.

 

From time to time the veil is pulled back, and, no matter the circumstances, we feel a sense of oneness with the universe. Maybe it happens when we’re laughing at a table filled with friends, or alone in the cacophonous silence of a still and busy forest, or suffering a terrible, life-severing loss, or simply catching eyes with a baby in a grocery store. We are occasionally, suddenly grabbed hold of by this love that is deeper and wider, more sure and more steady than everything else that exists. And we sense that not are apart from it, but in it, claimed by it. And for a moment we feel righted inside, and we wonder why it is we ever worry at all. And then, just as quickly as it comes, the fleeting glimpse of Reality fades. But these tastes give us hope, and feed our trust, and invite us to live differently.

 

We can’t make these experiences happen, but we can, “assume the inner stance of least resistance” to being overtaken by this love.  We can seek to be open – to, as Jesus invites us, notice the world around with wonder and gratitude, to be present in our own skin, our own lives, this one moment, unlike any other, and receive it. 

Instead of striving for the ideal someday version of our lives or this world that we can finally one day enjoy, we can welcome and appreciate our lives and this world right now, as they are, and be right here with God and each other. And this, perhaps, is what it means in the parable of Jesus, to be “rich toward God,” being ready to receive our lives as the generosity of God, abundantly poured into the world at every moment. 

 

I don’t think we are ever going back to a time when things can be planned and then carried out smoothly.  Life now is harder than it was three years ago, and all signs point to it continuing to get more complicated on nearly every front. There have never not been, and will never not be things to worry about, and there is not coming, in our lifetimes, the “finally” moment, when the barns are full, all the wrongs are put right, all the conditions conducive to peace are met, and we’ll heave a great collective sigh and say to our souls, Soul, you can relax now! 

And even if there were, it could all end in a second anyway.

 

But through all of it, whatever the conditions, the steady, never-ending, powerful, deeper love of God that claims the universe and is moving it all toward redemption, will continue to hold us fast. And we will be ok. No matter what.  

So beloved, let’s allow our lives to flow from God’s generosity and our souls to find rest in God’s peace.

Amen.

A Different Way of Being

Luke 10:38-42

Most of the time, we read the bible wrong. 

By that I mean, we read the bible like its purpose is to tell us how to act, and what we should be doing.  Really the bible is here to show us glimpses of how God acts, and what God is doing.  But we forget that most of the time. And almost nowhere as much as the story of Mary and Martha. Weird we even call it that, though. Because this isn’t a story about two sisters, pitted against each other, Mary the thinker and Martha the doer, Mary the serene vs. Martha the preoccupied.  This isn’t designed to help us divide the world into Marys and Marthas and decide which one is better (Mary), because Jesus says so.  And it’s certainly not meant to send us home striving to be Marys, while secretly thinking, dear God, everything would fall apart without the Marthas.

 

This is not a story to tell us how to be and what to do. This is a story about an encounter Jesus had with a woman named Martha. It begins, A woman named Martha welcomed Jesus into her home. Let’s start there. She wasn’t wife of so and so, or daughter of who’s its.  A powerful, capable, head of the household woman named Martha welcomed Jesus into her home.  

 

Martha and her sister Mary and brother Lazarus were Jesus’s friends. Martha’s house is where Jesus went when he needed a break from the road, needed to feel like he was going home to his people. It’s where he rested. Where he found solace.  Where he felt known. So let’s get that clear: Martha was arguably the savior’s favorite host. She regularly ministered hospitality to God incarnate. 

And they were all close. They told it like it was to each other, these siblings and Jesus. Martha is the one who reminds Jesus of his power to heal when Lazarus dies, and demands to know, Where were you, Lord?

Martha is a strong, competent person.  And good grief, who knows, she might have been a terrific storyteller or a fantastic card player. I’m just saying, she was possibly really fun to be around, or at least had all sorts of great character qualities that made her an excellent friend to Jesus.  But how would we know that?

We’ve boiled her down to not her best moment.  We’ve made being overwhelmed and stressed out her entire personality.  

 

Sometimes, in my not best moments, I wonder if being overwhelmed and stressed is my entire personality.  It sure feels right now like being overwhelmed and stressed has become our national personality.

 

I could begin to name why it’s our not best moment, and why we are collectively overwhelmed and stressed out, worried and distracted, but I don’t even have to list all the things– because it’s all the things.  It feels like most of us are carrying an internal list all the time.  We’re tense and clenched. Panic-level anxiety is at the ready. All we have to do is reach for it.  And not even that, really, it’s being dropped right into our laps at every turn. For most people right now, it would be hard to name an area of life that doesn’t feel a tad precarious. 

 

So our prayers start to sound a little like Martha when she’s had it, and like the disciples in the boat, being tossed about in the flashing darkness by the loud and terrible storm while Jesus sleeps soundly in the stern, because they say the same exact thing. Lord, don’t you even care? Don’t you even care that we are drowning? 

 

And when I am in a state, what I want is for the person I am dumping my anxiety onto, to join me in the deep end of despair. I want them to say, Oh my goodness, yes! This is terrible! This is, in fact, worse than you even thought!  No wonder you are overwhelmed!  Your panic is totally justified! This ship is going down, no doubt about it! 

At least, that’s what I think I want. That’s what I believe would feel good to hear in the moment. 

 

But here’s the thing about our God, who came into this whole storm of a life with and for us all  – God doesn’t necessarily see things the same way we do.  And even better, God can’t get pulled into our flawed interpretation of reality.

 

Jesus sees Martha for real. He listens past her desperation, and what she thinks should happen to make her feel better, how she thinks things could be put right (Make Mary help me!). He doesn’t sign on to her strategy because he doesn’t buy her interpretation of reality.  Instead he hears her need. He listens to the heart of her. He sees and upholds her humanity.  

 

Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things.  There is need of only one thing.  Mary has chosen the good, and it will not be taken away from her.

 

At first this might have sounded super annoying to her. Maybe she didn’t want to give up her strategy. Make her help me.  Maybe her righteous anger felt too hot to let go just yet. But I suspect it had a different effect. There is something so powerful about being seen. Martha. I see you, Martha. You are worried. You have so much weighing on you.  I see your distress, and I see that you are pulled in many directions.  

And then he says, There is need of only one thing.

 

And oh, I wish he had expounded on this! But he goes on to say, Mary has chosen the good part. And it will not be taken away from her.

 

Jesus will not participate in the lie that we are drowning, that things are urgent, that we are alone, no matter how real or overwhelming it all feels to us. Instead, the one with the power to quiet the storm reminds us again, I care about you.  And I care about your sister. And I am right here.  You are not alone. You have a choice. And so does everyone else.  I won’t take that choice away. 

 

We don’t have to live as though we are alone, as though it is all up to us, as though we are against one another instead of in it together.  Whatever the storms around us, between us or inside us, they are never more powerful or more real than God.  We are not drowning.  The one who made and loves us all is right here in our midst, we cannot be destroyed. We can feel overwhelmed, terrified, worried, anxious and afraid. We will even die.  But however bad it feels, or even gets, we are held in the love that does not waver or falter or fail.  Love does and will prevail.

 

When Martha is feeling at the end of her rope, she actually comes to Jesus with her panic and her stress, her demand that he change someone else’s behavior, and her accusation, Lord, don’t you even care? That is courageous and faithful and honest.  And Jesus meets her right there - in her misunderstanding of reality and her misguided strategy, and her bold trust, and he invites her to freedom. He invites her into a different way of being, a deeper way of trusting.

 

And I am not going to praise Mary for ditching out on her part of the work. But I am going to listen when Jesus says Mary has chosen the good.  Maybe choosing the good has nothing to do with ignoring what can or should be done. Maybe choosing the good is about turning our hearts toward the presence of God in the midst of whatever we are in.  Maybe it’s about receiving Christ more than doing things for him. Maybe the good has something to do with letting ourselves long for the one needful thing.

 

There is need of only one thing. I want it explained. I want, if I am honest, to be told what to do and think and how to act. I keep repeating that tantalizing, exasperating phrase to myself, turning it over in my mind, There is need of only one thing. It’s mysterious, and feels deeply true, and I don’t know how to grab hold of it, and I want to grab hold of it to make myself feel better. I want to wield it like a strategy.

Instead, I suspect, that very sensation of not knowing what to do with it, of instead letting it grab hold of us like an irritating invitation, that is what we’re nudged toward today. There is need of only one thing. Only one thing is necessary.

 

Sometimes our not best moments become a gateway into a different way of being, an invitation to find a new freedom.  Sometimes dumping our anxiety and our misguided strategies onto God can result in a whole new possibility opening up before us. This is what God does.  God is with us. God is right here. We are worried and distracted by many things.  But there is need of only one thing. 

 

Amen.

 

____________________

Prayer Practice: 

Take an index card or post-it note. Write on it your name, and these words from Jesus.

Put it somewhere you will see it often this week. When you see it, let it stop you. Breathe. Imagine Jesus asking speaking the words to you. 

 

___________, ___________ you are worried and distracted by many things.  There is need of only one thing.  

What I can and cannot do

 

Ephesians 4:1-16

I have close family members who are refusing to be vaccinated. I have weathered lots of disagreements before and still find a way to stay connected, but for whatever reason, this vaccination thing is a biggie for me.  I went the direct approach and talked about it with them and it created a huge rift between us and they asked me to stop bringing it up.  So now I sit with this rift and have a really hard time ignoring it, which is my preferred method of moving on.  I am angry. I feel trapped in anger. I am captive to anger. 
 
But here’s my modern advanced human being mistake: We think unity means ideological agreement. We think being united, connected, belonging to each other, means thinking, or knowing, or believing the same things.  Especially when our beliefs have real consequences in action – and we’re literally pulling in opposite directions. 
 
We also think unity is up to us. It’s our job to get each other to agree with us, then we will have unity. Then we will be connected.  And these days the way we build union is through anger or through fear.  Anger feels stronger than fear. So we let that fear turn into anger, anger that galvanizes union through violence. “Those people are doing this to us” we say, and we build whole communities around anger and fear, bonds that define ourselves over and against others, “We are not like them.” 
 
But at the core of it all, the unity we yearn for and are angry that we can’t have is to protect us from our fears.  Fear of loss, fear of perceived danger, fear of what will be taken away from us or done to us.
 
But in our scripture today Paul is talking about a different kind of unity.  Paul’s message is that we don’t have to be afraid. We were dead and made alive in Christ. Like the mantra that guarded my children from nightmares and reminded them of their baptism when they were little, we can remind ourselves, “Death can’t get me because Jesus has got me.”  We can give ourselves over to a union of life and for life without fear.  
 
The way of fear objectifies others and takes away personhood, both theirs and our own. But in the way of God, unity, belonging and connection is as persons with and for each other. God came as a person, for persons, to be a person with us and uphold our personhood.  
 
I can’t just snap the fingers of my heart and quit being angry, or fix my feelings by deciding to suddenly be ok with choices I see having damaging consequences in the world. And all my strategies for this are failing me.  I am imprisoned by anger.  I need to be freed by someone else. Paul says Jesus made captivity itself a captive.  “He who ascended, also descended” - God came into our death alongside, with and for us, so that by going toward the death we find life, and we find the one who sets us free from fear, and free from anger. Not by fighting them but by feeling them and opening them to God.  Christ makes a space for us to go toward our fear and anger, confessing them, again and again, and find in our places of death a God with us who give us life we cannot give ourselves.  
 
Fear and anger killed Jesus, and yet that fear, anger and death itself could not break the cosmic union that now holds us our deepest belonging to God and each other.  Our union is so secure in the love of God that nothing can separate us from that.  
 
What gives us unity is not ideological agreement but the very cross of Christ.  
This is Christ’s Body, not ours. We are set free to be with and for each other in love, to speak truth without fear, to call out lies that damage and divide, and in grace and gentleness, to grow up together into Christ, to more and more live as the one body we already are.
 
Yes, the pandemic could get worse. Yes school could be affected. Church could be affected. Vaccinated people can spread this.  “The war has changed,” the headlines read this week about the delta variant. And, friends, I am not down for more change or more war. I am not on board for this. I was looking forward to things getting better and better with no more surprises. I looking forward to mostly vaccinated, completely unmasked, shoulder-to-shoulder, boisterously singing, indoor worship on Labor Day weekend.  I was counting on it.  I was telling myself we were on our way out of this thing. I was feeling like I had about hit my limit of adjusting and surely we were finished with all that.  As Andy just said to me on a walk Friday night, “For people who watch the news, yesterday was a hard day.” 
 
But hearing that the war has changed and we are still deep in it doesn’t have to stoke me toward anger, or push me toward fear again, and we don’t have to let any of it drive a wedge deeper between us all.
 
Up against our impossibility and loss, we can confess our anger and fear and our exhaustion with it all, and let Christ meet us there, in and through one another. 
 
And we can “bear with one another,” as Paul says, we can “build up the body in love” and remind each other of what is true. So here are some things that are true that I want to remind us of: 
 
This, all of this, is part of the story. This is not the whole story. The world belongs to God. Church is who we are, not where we go.  Worship looks all different ways. So does gathering. We are good at adapting – even when we don’t like it. We’re scrappy and creative.  We’re also tired and probably sad. And it’s ok to grieve. Again. It’s ok to grieve again. Grieving is a need we can meet.
 
Also: Worry is practicing fear. Rest is practicing trust. We can choose what we want to practice.  
 
At last weekend’s Women’s Retreat we talked about different types of rest. (Sacred Rest by Sandra Dalton-Smith goes into detail about this, summarized in this article). Physical rest, like sleep, or stretching sore muscles, or walking circulation back into jarred nerves.  But the rest many of us need right now might not be physical; it might be emotional rest, or social rest, spiritual rest or sensory rest (or all the rest!).  We may need to take an extended break from the constant barrage of intensity in the news and social media.  We may want to set a regular coffee date, or morning walk, or evening phone call with a friend. Maybe we need to commit to reading a really good novel every week of August.  We might want a visit to a body of water, or the Landscape Arboretum, or to pull out a lawn chair each night and not miss a single sunset for a week. 
 
This month we will continue to meet over zoom for worship – Pastor Lisa will lead services that focus on awe, beauty and wonder in God’s creation.  And we are still planning to be together in-person (and via zoom, both) beginning September 5.  Because all we can do is just keep moving forward, knowing that things might - and likely will - keep changing, and as they do, we will keep adapting.  We don’t yet know what worship will look like on September 5. Will we be indoors or out? Will we all be masked? How will singing and music work?  When it’s time to have those answers, we will have those answers.  God always shows us the next step in front of us, and sometimes not very much further than that.  But we don’t actually know anything very far ahead of time these days.  And that’s ok. We are going to practice trusting. We are going to rest. 
 
Starting on Monday, I will be away for three weeks. For the past year and a half, it has been hard for me to step away – even when I was away.  I have carried worry with me, practicing fear.  I have not completely rested.  But I am going to be very intentional seeing about this time as sabbath time, to let this time reorient me back to God, back to trust.  This is God’s world.  We are held in God’s love, no matter what and always.  
 
Yesterday, while I was both breathing in the smoky Canadian Wildfire air into my aching, scratchy throat, and also watching an extended family pile out of cars with coolers and picnic blankets and set up next to a basketball court with tiny and big people getting ready to play together, I found myself praying the Serenity Prayer: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.  So, I can’t make the air better, or make people get vaccinated – not even people I love.  I can’t make covid not be so relentless and contagious.  And I can’t even make myself not feel angry or sad or worried or scared.  

But I can remember that I belong to God and everyone else.  And I can take in the moments of joy and connection. And I can practice noticing and being present. And I can grieve.  And I can confess my fear and anger instead of letting them consume and trap me.  And I can rest.  I can be deliberate about practicing trust.  So I pray for the courage to rest.  And I invite you to rest this month too.  
 
Just before Paul says to live in unity, belonging and trust, he says why and how we can.  
I invite you to receive these words as a benediction:
 
I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, for ever and ever. Amen.
 

Perspective

Matthew 2:1-12

Isaiah 60:1-3

 

The story of Epiphany unfolds in a simple home on a simple street, where an ordinary-seeming family opens their door to astonishing strangers from afar, who unexpectedly kneel before a mother with a child on her lap, and then give strange gifts and tell strange stories in a strange language, with charades and hand gestures, of a long journey led by a mysterious star, the very heavens pointing them to this precise place, revealing to them that the God of the cosmos has come into this life with us, for us all, and is indeed embodied in this drooling toddler sitting before them.  And the mother and father, who - along with her formerly childless aunt and uncle, and a few local sheepherders – have carried this secret knowledge for a couple of years by themselves, are suddenly reminded of the scope of things by those from afar whose presence in their living room declares in no uncertain terms that the whole universe is in on this thing, that in their beloved child God is actually here, and his very existence in her arms has changed life for every person who has ever or will ever live. 

 

That’s Epiphany, celebrated by millions of people for two thousand years. But we tend to miss that at the time, the real story was just an odd little scene on the margins of another story that was far more visible, and it’s impact seemed far more real and pressing to far more people. 

 

The other story is of a so-called king, notably insecure and obsessed with his reputation, name locked away in his fortress, raging in fear, causing all in the land to be terrified and worried about what he might do, because he’s fixated on this perceived threat to his power and authority – a baby, he’s told by these foreigners, who has been born specifically to claim what has been his title, “The King of the Jews.”  So he uses manipulation and flattery to try to coerce these scholars from another land to do his bidding - as though they are under his jurisdiction or influence – so that he can stamp out a potential usurper by any means necessary.

 

Oh, Herod.  Poor, frightened, tormented Herod.  This story is so much bigger than you. It’s so much longer, deeper, stronger and more significant.  God is doing this thing.  God has come, God is here among us. And there is nothing you or anybody else can do about it.

 

No matter how it looks on the surface at any given moment, the heartbeat underneath is love.  And this project – of a whole world indivisibly connected to God and each other, of all nature in harmony, and all people in family, with God as the true sovereign, who rules in disconcerting vulnerability and incontestable strength – like it or not, that is happening.  

 

And it can never be thwarted. Not by ego-maniacal leaders, or their misguided and vengeful followers, not by the wisdom of the sages, or the coercion of earthly power, not by the tragic dysfunction of broken systems or the excellent functioning of perfect ones, not by widespread illness or concentrated madness, or brutal violence or tragic suffering, not by anything human beings can forget or demand, or screw up or succeed at.  Nothing we can do, or not do, can stop what God is already doing. It is unstoppable. 

 

And yes, we do a whole lot to muck it up –accidentally or on purpose.  We can act like we are divided, we can kill, and blame, and shut down, and overlook each other. We can contaminate the earth and wipe out whole species; we can ravage our own hearts and minds and go numb or afraid – and fear can make us do terrible, heartless things. But no matter what, God is doing this. It can happen through us or it can happen in spite of us, but God’s project of redemption and wholeness is under way, and it will not stop until all that remains is love. 

This is the message of Epiphany.

 

Today’s scripture tells us about some, one especially, who missed God. Who lived in the way of fear, obsessed with their own security and power – and ultimately lost it anyway because death is real, triumph is short-lived, and permanent success is an illusion.  

 

And it tells us about those who welcomed God in. Who set down everything and went on a long journey to lay themselves down at the feet of the divine with ecstatic joy.  They let epiphany shape them, each moment, taking it in, noticing, listening, sharing, and then getting up and going home by another way, because ultimately our security comes from trusting our lives to the Great I Am, who directs the whole universe in true wisdom.  

 

And even when this King over all - who starts out his time here submitting himself completely into the arms and care of those made in his image - grows up to be killed by these he has come in to love and save, even that does not stop the project, it only cements it deeper and opens it wider.  The light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it. Not ever.

 

Epiphany illuminates our choice: We can look at what is right in front of us at any given moment, and we can live in fear. We can believe that the powers that rattle their sabers are the real powers, and that the terrible damage they can do – and they can do terrible damage – can break us, or make the world go off course. 

 

But like those who followed the star we are called to lift our eyes to a further horizon.  The whole world is in on this conspiracy. It’s unfolding in the margins, in ordinary homes and ordinary lives on every continent at every moment, God is coming in. And the earth itself bears witness - every blade of grass, and creeping insect; every daily sunrise and blazing planet, light years away testifies. 

We are people of this infinite vista, this vast, cosmic perspective, not bound to look only to the situations in front of us like Herods, captive in fear to events and circumstances by which we stand or fall, driven to go after our enemies or hide in fortresses of false security. 

 

We belong to the bigger story; we are subjects of the Alpha and Omega, beginning and end, eternal and omnipotent.  And this King has come; and now there is nothing, not anything, that can separate us from the love of God.  God’s redemption is under way already and forever.  

 

So we are called to hang onto the ancient and cosmic promise and not to cower at bullies or venerate false power, to be guided by the deeper, eternal force of love, instead of the shallow whims of panic, the rise and fall of drama and dread, addicted to the non-stop fluctuations of worry, frenzy and regret. 

 

This means we live our lives paying attention to dreams, and finding solidarity with people we think of as other, and bearing gifts for the unsuspecting, and gladly laying down our lives as a gift of gratitude to the God who comes in, and by the Spirit we are made willing to be redirected and sent home another way.

 

In the tides of history, there is, as Ecclesiastes says, nothing new under the sun.  Nations rise and fall. Great leaders come and go, fools rise up and disappear, fear dominates and wars rage, babies are born and gardens are tended and beloveds die and are buried, their graves are covered with new fallen snow, and the sun melts the snow and spring comes again, and love, love, love, happens, in between, in all the nooks and crannies, weaving us together and weaving us into the story that cannot be derailed.  God’s story.  There is never anything so bad that it can alter the origin or the outcome – it all comes from God and to God it all returns.

 

And in the in between time, God comes to share it.  The hidden, humble king, a baby savior, who saves us from all the darkness within and without. The One who brings together strangers to surrender in joy to the love and hope embodied in their midst. 

 

Nothing can stop love and forgiveness, nothing can hinder hope and healing – not the most terrible thing we can imagine or face can stop God from acting.  The world belongs to God.

 

So, Arise, shine; for your light has come. 

Amen. 

 

 

 

 

 

Turkey tracks, monkey mind, and other places to glimpse God

Matthew 6:24-34

On the church retreat last weekend Maisy and I went for a walk through the snowy woods.  We saw all sorts of tracks in the snow – deer, mice, turkeys (which look like big arrows pointing in the way somewhere).  We spotted Jen and Brian, and little Ava sitting atop Brian’s shoulders grasping his head like the world’s cutest smiling hat.  

When we had nearly returned to the lodge, we passed a small red squirrel, sitting in the snow, gnawing on an acorn.  It was only about 6 feet away from us, and didn’t seem bothered as we came near.  Suddenly it looked up from its work and noticed us. It’s animal instinct must have kicked in, because it made to run, only instead of dashing across the vast empty field away from us, it must have made a quick calculation about the single tree, a mere two feet from where we stood, and ran toward us instead. A second after it landed on the backside of the trunk, its little tufted, squirrelly face suddenly peeked around the tree, right at our faces and jerked back into hiding. Maisy and I were shocked and delighted and started to laugh. Just a few seconds later, it peeked out the other side of the tree, as if to see if we were still there, and we doubled over.  It’s tiny face was arm’s reach away. We weren’t just out observing nature, we were being met by it – interacting with this other species who was interacting with us. After a minute or two, the squirrel dashed up the tree onto a branch and stared warily down at us as we continued our walk, feeling light and joyful.

On that retreat (our guest speaker) Phil said that all Christian disciplines are designed to bring us back into the love and connection of God  - they help us remember and experience what’s true. Then he called out two in particular, that are readily accessible, that we can do anytime, each one like a shortcut back to the Kingdom of God when we’ve veered off course into the Way of Fear.  These two practices are forgiveness and gratitude. 

Forgiveness deals with the past; it’s the remedy for regret. Gratitude resets the future; it’s like civil disobedience to worry.  This week, as we’re heading into the official holiday of gratitude, we’ll look at worry and gratitude.  We’ll save the talk about regret and forgiveness for next weekend, after Thanksgiving is over. 

But, as Phil pointed out, both forgiveness and gratitude begin with seeing and accepting things as they are.

“Here is what is.” They both say. “This is what’s true.” 

They don’t cover up or smooth over, and they don’t deny or avoid.  

Forgiveness and gratitude both see and accept what is.

The only place God can meet us, or that we can even actually live our lives – is in the present, in what is right now.  

Even though regret would try to tell us otherwise, we can’t go back and change the past.  

And no matter what worry says, we can’t shape a future without risk and suffering.  

It just doesn’t work like that.  

But we can waste our whole lives either reaching back or grasping forward, and never live in the truth of what is, which is to never really live.

So to begin, we have to see and accept what is. 

So we look. We notice. We consider.

Consider the lilies of the field.  Look at the birds of the air; see the squirrels of the trees. Consider the Avas on the Daddy’s shoulders.  Notice the world you’re in right now while you’re in it. 

Often, seeing and accepting what is takes something called self-empathy.  

Toward the end of my sabbatical, the third week in October, I went with three other pastors to the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky. This is the place I went two years ago for a silent retreat by accident.  This time I was going for a silent retreat on purpose.

For almost two full days, I felt my crazy, monkey mind bouncing around with song lyrics, commercial jingles, dumb movie lines and 90s pop tunes.  “Come with me if you want to Not-Talk” kept repeating on a loop in my brain.  There was just so much unrelenting noise inside of me. But just after my arrival, I had read something Fr. Thomas Keating wrote, “The psyche needs expulsion just like the body does.”  So I kept taking a deep breath and acknowledging and accepting what is, and giving myself some empathy.  Look at you, noisy mind!  Look at all the expulsion you’re doing!  

And on and on it would go.  

Until… it didn’t.  

Until I realized with a start that there was no noise inside my head at all. 

The songs were gone, the words were gone.  My mind felt clear and open and spacious.  I was astonished. I kept walking into my mind like an empty room, and feeling around the clean and beautiful walls and floor that I’d maybe never felt through all the clutter usually jostling around in there.  Would you look at that! It’s still quiet!  And the quiet, still, focused mind remained for the rest of the week, and I was mostly able to stay in the present with God, and marveled that such a thing was even possible. 

Except for when worry came.  

Perhaps nothing is faster at pulling us out of the right now- where God is waiting to hang out with us – than worry. Worry is a tantalizing, addictive distraction. It makes us feel like we have some control. We don’t.  It’s a liar from the Way of Fear.  For me, it’s kind of the Lead Liar. It's the liar out in front that lets the other lying lies slink in after it when worry has propped open the door.  Worry takes us captive to hypothetical scenarios and worst-case projections – what if there isn’t enough? What if I am not enough? What if the worst happens? What if I lose it all?  

Worry found me because of my phone.  I was choosing to be as present as possible in my life right now, which was this silent time with God.  So when I got there I turned off my phone, and planned to leave it off the whole time.

This felt a huge deal. Because not only would I be away from my family for a whole week, but for about 30 hours of this time, my kids were going to be home alone.  They would be spending the night at two different neighbors’ houses, and everything was planned out to the minute, but it was the first time we’d left them without grandma or staying at the house with them. 

And I was turning off my phone.  

What if something terrible happens while I am away? 

At times I had to sit on my hands and take deep breaths to keep myself from heading downstairs to the landline phone booth in the lobby and calling home to make sure all was well. 

Again with the self-empathy, this time for my heart.  

Oh, dear heart! Look how afraid you feel to be apart from them!  Do you think that by being right there with them you could prevent all terrible things from happening? Look how scared you are to face your deepest fears! What if something terrible didhappen and you lost the people you most love and treasure? And you were just you? All alone in the world…? what if, what if, what if…”

Remember a couple years ago when we said worry was the big what if? Pulling you right into the way of fear?  Worry is practicing fear, we said.  What if, what if, what if…

And rest, we said, is practicing trust. Rest is the Even if… even if… even if…

Every time I felt the worry rise up in my throat I gave myself empathy with the what ifs until I could let it go and return to the resting even ifs… of trust.  

And I also wrote postcards. I mailed my family two postcards a day. I even sent one to the dog.  

Imagining them getting my postcards helped me let go of my worry and return to the present, where God was waiting for me. (Of course, the postcards did not begin arriving until I had been home for two days, but I didn’t know that at the time, so it worked for me).

God wants to be with us right now. 

We can see God in the world right now. We can notice God in our lives right now.

God likes you, and enjoys you, and wants to hang out with you right now.

The best part of the five days I spent at that monastery was the two different hikes I took for over three hours each, just hanging out with God.  The first hike was through a green forest with the deep silence of nature – which of course is cacophonous – birds and brooks and turkeys and squirrels and wind in the trees.  Deep communing with nature with no goal other than to be.  Look at the birds! Consider the lilies!  Walk out your own foot-stepping beat in God’s great symphony!

A frost overnight meant my second hike, two days later, was among brilliantly red-dipped trees and golden tunnels of lime and yellow. I got to see the world suddenly shift into its Autumn garb so deliberately. Who sees and holds all of this in loving care,my heart asked me, while you are not noticing? You sneaky, gorgeous world! You steady, persistent God! Gratitude upon gratitude, for the grace upon grace.

This past week I was at the National Youth Worker’s Convention in St. Louis. I go every year and spend nearly three days sitting and listening to strangers one by one, with no other agenda except to watch for what God is doing in their lives.  

I get to consider the person and life before me, and watch for the presence of God, and when we do this, right now God is with us.  In the very simple and profound act of my listening and their speaking, we are sitting in the presence of Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit, and seeking first the Kingdom of God and real connection with God. This is not just a bunch of churchy words.  This is really what happens when we look together at the honest truth of our lives – both the hope and the pain of them – and seek God there.  God says when you seek me you will find me. And so we sit together and seek. And so we find.

Thanksgiving is a ripe time for fake gratitude.  

But I am going to suggest that this year, we don’t give in to the temptation to fake the feeling, and instead we meet ourselves right where we are. With empathy. 

Hey! Look at that pain that just popped up out of nowhere when Dad made that comment! Wow, look at the grief that rises up when I think about who isn’t at the table this year.  

And when we give ourselves that empathy, we can come back into the moment enough to begin to look again. To consider. 

Consider the smells of tradition and family as they waft around you, notice the memories they evoke. Watch the tiny one taking first steps, and see the tall one who has suddenly shot up past her mom.  Look the one who has always seemed invincible now appearing so frail tucked into his chair.  

Seeking first the Kingdom means seeing them.  These belong to you.  And they belong to God.  

And all throughout this and the upcoming Christmas holidays, you can bet worry is going to try to tap you on the shoulder and say, Hey, I supposed to be here today; holidays are my jam!  And the temptation will be to give in to it and give worry the floor. 

But worry is no match for the real reality. Worry can’t keep hold when you turn and face it, and name the fear.  Because the real reality, the Kingdom of God truth hiding right there underneath the worry is love.  You’re worried because you so treasure this person.  You so value this connection. The idea of losing it, or of losing them, makes you afraid. 

Naming the fear turns worry from a powerful liar to an obnoxious invitation to be present to the love. It’s a chance right in front of you to let yourself feel the depth of that love seems suddenly threatened with loss –to look at the love and accept it.  Receive what is.  And then receive the gratitude too, because it will rise up inside you when you do.  I love these people. In all their messy, broken, infuriating beauty.  I love them. In the mystery of knowing them and never really knowing them, is also love. I belong to them and they to me.

And this is one way to seek first the kingdom of God.

But let’s not forget that scripture begins by talking about money. The verse just before it says, you can’t serve both God and money; there can be only one master in your life. So therefore, don’t worry about what you’re going to eat or drink, or strive to have stability in this world.  God will take care of you.  This feels like kind of a dangerous message.  Of course we need to worry about those things.  What kind of people would be if we didn’t worry about taking care of ourselves? Lazy? Naïve? 

The Way of Fear would have us obsess about self-preservation.  It would warn us to hoard and stockpile, and say, you can never be too safe.  It would hold out images of a future without stability, and tell us that unless we grind away relentlessly, that’s where we’ll end up.  

But again, when we turn and look at worry, when we tell it what we see, when we’re gentle with our pounding hearts and our shouting minds and say, Look at how afraid you are!  Look at what that fear is telling you!  Gradually worry backs down and gratitude rises up, because we can see the real reality underneath.  Look how I am cared for. How my needs are met. See what gifts are abundantly spilling into my life!  And not just the roof over my head or the food on my table.  Gifts that are bigger and deeper and more sure: Love. Meaning. Friendship. Laughter. Beauty.

Can anyone by worrying add even a single hour to their life? Jesus asks. 

Life is filled with suffering. That’s a fact. 

And life is filled with joy.  That’s a fact too.  

And all worry does is keep us from experiencing life.

When we do the work right now of accepting what is, we are opening ourselves to experiencing life. 

The Way of Fear does all it can to avoid death, and (spoiler alert) fails.   

The Way of God is the death and resurrection reality that doesn't hide from what's real.  We die to the things we thought made us secure or strong, and we acknowledge that the things and people we cling to die too.  And so will we. And we also remember our God joined us in the worst life can bring, including death, so that we might have life that outlives death. 

Fredrich Buechner famously says, "The grace of God means something like: 'Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are, because the party wouldn't have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us.”

This human life we live on this earth in is so precious and precarious. 

It is both magnificent and brief.  The grass will wither, the flower will fade, and the house will crumble away and disappear, but the love of God is everlasting, it is eternal life that will never end.

So stop and look around at this stunning world in all its detail and diversity.  

God is caring for it. 

And let it in, this one specific life you are standing inside of right now. 

God is caring for you.

Stop and see your life as it is.  

Let gratitude fill up the space in your heart opened by love.  

Instead of worrying, seek first the way of love and the bond that connects us to God and each other despite all our acting to the contrary. 

And all will be will, and all will be well, and all manner of things shall be well.

Amen.

(Quotes from Keating - Intimacy with God, Buechner - Wishful Thinking, Julian of Norwich)