Begin anywhere.

Esme was born in England and raised in Chepstow, a Norman town on the Welsh/English border. She has B.S. in business administration/marketing from Portland State University and a master of divinity from Church Divinity School of the Pacific. Prior to becoming a priest, she was CEO of an executive recruiting firm. She served as associate rector at Grace Memorial in Portland, rector at St. Aidan's in Portland and as supply priest at Calvary Episcopal Church in Seaside.

Looking for Love

“Why”, you might ask, in one’s wildest imagination, “Would someone put four gigantic letters up at the foot of the St. John’s Bridge?” 

The letters spell out a word that is one of the most famous in the world in any language, most used, most abused, most bandied around for reasons far beyond its real meaning, and as thus is the least understood word in the world. If you ever get up into my neighborhood in St. Johns, you might have seen the letters and seen the sign. It first showed up in March of 2019, just about a year before the great pandemic had the entire world in its grip. 

The letters spell out one word: “Love,” and the massive sign that holds the letters sits at the foot of the iconic landmark, the beautiful St. John’s Bridge. I’ve come to love the bridge, with its gothic arches, its aged patina blending with the colors of the river and the trees from which it springs and into which it disappears. You can see the sign, which only adds to the sacramental ethos of the structure, as you begin to cross over the bridge from the St. John’s side. You just can’t miss the word, “Love.” 

The man who created the sign, Romen Sorensen has his workshop near the sign, so he sees his work every day, and is able to remember the reason he designed and erected it in the first place. He says, 

“I didn’t do it to get a bunch of money or get notoriety. I just felt it needed to exist, very deeply. That was my calling.” He felt called to create something that he sensed was needed in Portland. He felt the city calling to him for a little more love in at a time when love was harder to find, harder to believe in, harder to trust.

That was then, and now is now, and given the iconic gospel reading we received this morning, it seems very appropriate that we revisit that need to spread a little more love than usual out into the uncertain atmosphere of our current earthly condition.

“It’s the opposite of all the negative energy we’ve had” Sorensen said. .”It’s promoting the idea of love, compassion and empathy. I just quietly set it there and now people have grown to love it and I’ve had this immense feedback of positivity,” 

After a storm blew away the “e” in his word, Romen wired the letters together so that all the letters would stay intact and they have, throughout all the harshness of last winter and the searing heat and humidity of this years summer. The sign has become iconic, and you can find his artwork “Love” on stickers throughout Portland and beyond, via social media.

Sorensen made a very astute observation. He noted that if we were to count up all the times you hear the word “hate” in the news, it would far outnumber the times you hear the word, “love.” And interestingly, my water aerobics coach wore a t-shirt today that read, “Resist the temptation to hate.” 

And when you get too much of one thing, especially something negative, like the word hate, everything gets out of balance. Yes, balance. Hate, or the ability to hate has and will always exist, and sometimes for the right reason. Jesus would say he hated injustice, oppression, cruelty and neglect, even though he never spoke of it, regardless of his feelings. Yet, in the name of love, he forgave those who did. We can think of Paul. We can think of us and all God’s wayward children, forgiven from the Cross for the sin of hate.

In his his way, Sorensen, was and is using his art to respond to the call for more balance in the face of anger and hate that we heard during the pandemic and face so much today, as did that which Jesus heard and faced 2,000 years ago.

Yet in the face of real hatred, political issues, in his own day, Jesus preached love. Sorenson is doing the same in a different way, but with renewed determination to build a permanent sign, which will continue to be embraced as a light balancing the darkness of earthly troubles that continue to swirl around us.

What about each of us? We may not be called to build a giant Love sign at the foot of a bridge, but we are called to preach love in a particular way, each of us in our own way, with the gifts we have been given in order to display that love to the world. 

In his answer to the scribe who approached Jesus and asked him “Which commandment is the first of all?”, Jesus responded by quoting the Sh’ma, part of the Hebrew daily prayer which is written in the Hebrew Bible, or the Old Testament, as we Christians call it.[1] 

Sh’ma means to listen, understand, and respond with action. In Hebrew, hearing and doing are the same thing. The prayer is about listening to and loving God. It is a declaration of faith in the One God and is considered countercultural because it calls for serving one God above all else. Long ago and up until today, just repeating the words of the Sh’ma helps to deepen the Jews’ faith and commitment to one God, one Lord. 

Jesus teaches that it can do the same for all people.

Jesus answered the scribe; “The first commandment is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” 

There is no other commandment greater than these. It became a prayerful mantra for our ancient ancestors, and it remains for all Jews and all Christians today, even with its slight modifications. For instance, Jesus uses the word mind, rather than might, and adds the word “strength.” Interesting and subtle shifts for us to ponder.

Regardless of the shifts, Jesus is clear. We are called to love. To love God with all our heart, meaning to love for all the right reasons. For instance, one can become known through one’s humble response to God’s call, one’s humble but effective use of one’s gifts, such as Romen Sorensen. That is to become known due to one’s works. It is not to use one’s good or creative works in order to become known or even famous. It is to become known becauseof one’s works. 

Love of God is expressed in this way and God becomes more loved because of your expression of love. One could say, love of God is shown and expressed through kind, humble and honest interaction with all those God has created in God’s own image. You and me and everyone else. 

If you are longing to become known or famous because of self-serving motivations, and accomplish this through doing good works, or doing great good, in a way you have “used” God by saying one’s good works are really for the service of God, even though one makes sure one’s name is on the new building, or at the top of the donor list, or is the recipient of the grand prize at the annual charitable dinner. Don’t be confused. This often happens, and prizes, recognition and fame often come to great charitable acts or works or grand financial donations. But, love of God, is revealed when one wishes to remain anonymous, or is truly humbled by the recognition and questions oneself regarding one’s motivations. We can think of Mother Theresa and her work in India.

Mother Teresa, also known as St. Teresa of Calcutta, was Albanian, born in the Skopje (pr. Skow-pee-a) in the Kosovo Vilayet (pr. Veeha –yet) area of North Macedonia in 1910. She was a Catholic nun and missionary and her real name was Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu: (Pr: An-yes Gohjeh Boyageeu) She died in Calcutta, India in 1997. In her lifetime of charitable service she was awarded numerous special awards and recognitions for her work including the the Noble Peace Prize. If you read her biography, which many of you may already know, you will see what it means to love God with all your heart. She sought no fame, although she received it; she sought no awards, even though she received them, she changed nothing after receiving recognition from world leaders, both secular and religious, but just kept on responding to her call. And even in those times when, tired and feeling hopeless, she began to doubt herself and her faith, she was honest enough to let the world know of it, and through her faithful honesty was able to find her way back to her purpose in the name of love.  In short, she loved God with all her heart.

When we say we love God with all our heart, we must ask ourselves: what is it we are seeking? 

To love God with all one’s soul is to be ready to sacrifice, even unto death, for one’s faith and trust in God. Throughout history, we have examples of Jewish and Christian martyrs who died rather than to betray God. We have historical accounts of Jewish martyrs reciting the Sh’ma as they endured torture and were led to death for their faith. We are very familiar with Christian martyrs who faced savage animals in Roman arenas, or were burned at the stake, or put through all manner of torture and death, simply due to their absolute and unmovable love of God with all their soul, praying and singing hymns of praise as they died. 

What are we prepared to sacrifice by loving God with all our soul?

To love God with all one’s might, is in one sense from an ancient Hebrew perspective, to love God with all one’s wealth. In other words, to love God by generous giving to charitable and helpful causes for all God’s people. To cling to one’s money was, and still is, by the faithful of all the Abrahamic faith traditions, perceived as idolatry that is, to make one’s possessions or money as something to be protected and idolized above all else, even God. We can remember George Eliot’s classic story of the miser, Silas Marner.

Does loving God with all our might live at the foundation of our decisions to give our resources to the church or to any other charitable organization?

So how do we begin to love “with all” these approaches and meanings? One can say look here, I go to church or synagogue regularly.  I read the scriptures, I serve in the church or synagogue, and I don’t expect that God thinks I’m doing that to show that I love God. I do all that just because I love God.

The problem is that, for all this, most of us have just come part way in the loving God department. Much of the time, we do these things with love “in” our hearts. But God’s commandment is to love God with “all” of your heart. Not only that, but with all your soul, and with allyour mind, and as Jesus adds, with all your strength.

The commandment is simple and straightforward, but like the world ”love,” itself, it is misleadingly complex and hard to really deeply and profoundly understand and embrace. We are all carrying a rather large sack on our backs, filled with thoughts, emotions, feelings, reactions, deeds and projections upon others. We picked the sack up in early life and find, if we are not careful, it can become far to heavy for us to keep on enjoying life as we should. Other people may see some of the contents of our sacks as good things, good deeds, but maybe, if we were honest, we would know we were fooling some of the people most of the time, or most of the people some of the time, or in some other ways of working the equation.

Better to keep the truth of a lot of what we display in the world, tucked safely back there in the backpack, out of sight, lest our true selves be exposed. What we like to call our lesser strengths are safer back there, out of sight. The problem is, that very likely by the end of the day, we lose sight completely of what is back there, and don’t’ like to remember that there is a backpack filled with truths about ourselves, existing there at all! 

Sometimes, when we sit with someone, a friend or relative who has suffered a great loss, or disappointment, or failure, or something that has shattered dreams and expectations, we realize how much they must have had to face the contents of everything they knew about themselves, which they thought were packed away and forgotten, and now, in the face of tragedy or grief, sorrow or regret, come face to face with the contents of the sack, spilled out across one’s awareness causing one’s truth to become clear and evident.

It is in those moments that we each have a choice, for every one of us has come to that moment in one way or another. And, at that moment, we either accept the burdensome aspects of ourselves, or we reject them in fear of losing our place in society, losing face, or worse, being seen as less than we are. 

It is in those moments, when one looks into the eyes of another, looks in to the heart, soul and mind of another, that the decision to accept or reject the opportunity to dump the contents of one’s backpack in the name of love, is made clear to us.

The question remains. How shall we do we love “with all.” Not just part. Not just for self-gain. But “with all” for God. “With all our heart, with all our soul and with all our mind. In what ways do we, could we exhibit God’s love and our love for God, by consciously, unconsciously, or subconsciously loving with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. We may never reach perfection in our quest to love “with all,” but we can aspire with each step we take forward from this moment on.

Thinking of blind Bartimaeus, whom we thought about two weeks ago in Mark’s earlier gospel reading,[2] how might you respond to your call to preach love by bringing all that you have at your disposal to act as your lamplight so that you may “see” at last, the meaning of the first commandment for the good of your neighbor, and all God’s people. 

What is your priority? What is most important to you? What is your “first commandment?” Go deep, ponder, take time, and think, this is not a surface question. Walk the labyrinth and pray to God for guidance in your answer until you can truthfully say to yourself, “This is most important in my life and I would die for it.”

Think of the words we are called to know, the words of Jesus reciting his interpretation of the Sh’ma and put the commandment in this way as helpful guide.

I will love the Lord my God, with the whole of my heart

I will love the Lord my God, with the whole of my life.

I will love the Lord my God, with the whole of my mind.

I will love the Lord my God, with the whole of my strength.

And, as you think about these, ponder also, “What does the word “wholeness” mean to you?” 

What will you bring into the world that reveals the truth of your call to love God and neighbor in a new and more complete way? Will it be a big sign that spells out LOVE? Or something else that is just as evident of your intent to love “with all.” 

A quiet action requiring no recognition in exchange? 

A kind word that triumphs over harmful words? 

Where do you keep the bright parts of your heart, mind and soul: your courage, your honesty, your humility, your dedication and your capacity for love, which can help to banish the dark places found in the self-serving, the controlling, the need-to-know, the need to be recognized, the pessimistic places being harbored in that backpack into which we dare not look.

Look we must. But perhaps not always for the dark places, but for the bright lights of our heart, soul and mind which do exist. We are looking for love, and even as we root around searching the places it is most likely to be found, sometimes we miss noticing or offering the most obvious signs of where it exists and how we can reveal it. 

Like the giant word, fashioned out of wood and steel, whose existence we might never realize existed, brazenly erected for the world to see and does,  for all those who cross the St. John’s Bridge.

Amen

Written to the Glory of God

E.J. R. Culver+

November 10, 2024

[1]Deuteronomy 11:13-21, Numbers 15:37-41

[2]Mark 10: 46-52

For All the Saints

If you’ve been around any mainstream church, no matter its denomination, you will be well aware of what we call, the Easter Triduum. The Paschal Triduum (Holy Triduum) of Easter, moves as one single liturgy from sundown on Maundy Thursday to sundown on Easter Sunday. As all the faithful come to understand, you can’t get to Easter without Good Friday, and you can’t get to Good Friday without Maundy Thursday. Even the most unchurched have a sense of the movement in the church during this time. 

There is another Triduum, of which, I would venture to say, far less people are aware. We have just lived through what the Church calls,  Allhallowstide. It’s hard for us to grasp it as easily as we do at Easter, yet here we are, like the rest of the Church on November the 3rdth, celebrating one part of a deeply profound time, which began 2 days ago today.  Truth be told, the first day of Allhallowstide is completely eclipsed and engulfed by a secular festival, even though grown out of ancient faith-filled origins, which we now call Halloween.

This first part of this Allhallowstide begins with All Hallows Eve. The Celts called it the night of Samhain (Sau-ihn), which means “hallowed” or “holy” as in, “Our Father, “hallowed” be thy name.” It was placed at the edge of the coming of winter, a time of darkness. 

Over time, and through various iterations and contractions, we are the happy recipients of the name we know as Hallowe’en, (Halloween) via the ancient customs brought to the United States from Scottish and Irish Celts. 

People look forward to Halloween. What’s not to like about the opportunity to dress up in costume and to receive treats. From child to adult, there seems an opportunity to play with ideas we would normally steer far away from, such as skeletons, ghosts, scary creatures, or whatever it is that goes bump in the night, and it provides an opportunity to string up some lights to brighten the encroaching darkness of winter. 

In truth, one is supposed to offer treats to keep the evil away, the trickster who could turn life upside down. The ancient Irish Celts celebrated All Hallow’s Eve by carving turnips and placing little lit candles in them. Then they would walk from house to house asking for food in exchange of prayer offered in honor of those loved ones passed from their earthly life. The celebrants moved through the night, carrying the light of hope with them, into the dawn of a new day. A recollection, perhaps, of Easter morning.

Unlike the moveable feast of Easter, however, All Hallows' Eve falls on the 3st of October each year; the day before All Hallows' Day, also known as All Saints' Day, which is followed on the 3rd day by All Souls Day on November 3rd.  The theme of light overcoming darkness continues… banishing the shadows of our fears……brought to this day through hallowed tradition. 

The three days of Allhallowstide have become conflated into a single opportunity for people, through their own decorations and carvings, in pumpkins or gourds, to emphasize their own particular fantasies and fears. 

While the underlying meaning of the three days seems lost, we can think a bit about it and try to bring some understanding of why it is, with variations on the theme of light overcoming darkness and assorted candy, fun and irreverent celebration, that the world continues to enter into this universal theme of All Hallow’s Eve.

Whether personified through a theme of trick or treat, or stories and dreams which wake one up with a jolt in the middle of the night, all of these images are dispelled with lights as the night of All Hallow’s Eve melts into the morning dawn of All Saints’ Day.

Perhaps, it is at this time, this Allhallowstide, that we think most  about time, the passing of time, and the time when time ends for each of us as it must. We don’t much like to think about the aspect of time running out, and yet the reality of time is always held deeply within our psyches. In all humanity lies a fear of death, and we do all we can to deny its existence, even to confronting it with costume, revelry, humor and carved pumpkins designed to scare away the evil spirits, the messengers of danger and doom. 

With their lighted turnip “Jack 0’ Lanterns”, the ancient celebrants were celebrants of the Holy, with the continuing emphasis of the theme of light over darkness.  Yet no matter ancient time, or today, All Hallow’s Eve gently gives way, having prepared us for All Saints’ Day, a time of celebration for all the Saints gone before, all those to whom we turn for inspiration in the living of our own lives. 

We give thanks for the gifts they left behind; their legacies and spiritual batons for us to pick up and carry forward. We think of them as the Communion of Saints, or as a great “cloud of witnesses,” Those whose time has come and gone, and yet are spiritually constant in the light of our God who is always present in the here and now. 

We can trace images of the saints throughout the scriptures. We can read of the saints in glory, where time is no more. We can find them in the company of angels before the throne of God. Or, we can be reminded, as the Epistle to the Hebrews urges us “since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,……. let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.” (Hebrews 12:1-2.) 

We can look back to the beginning of time until the present time, to find all those who have given their lives, sometimes under torture and death for their faith. And, as we view them, we can recall the Beatitudes and the “hallow-ness” of the Saints.

‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

‘Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

‘Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

‘Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

The Beatitudes personify the qualities of all the saints, past and present, who lived and live into each new day, as we, too, receive the gift of each new day.  As people of God, we can think of the Holy, the “hallowed” possessing all of these qualities, just as Jesus, and just as God desired for all creation.  Perhaps we can find elements of each of these qualities within in every one of ourselves.  

After all, we are counted among the saints as those who have and who are serving and responding to the Good News in their own time. We acknowledge their presence in both of our Creeds, “I/We believe in the communion of saints.” In other words, we believe in fellowship across the world with whatever people have strived for, or are striving for, or have given or are giving their lives for in the name of faithful service, past, present and future.  

While we hold in our mind single individuals, we also envision also the entire company of people, communion of saints. To think of the “communion of Saints” opens up a mixture of visions of what that communion must look like along with memories of we recognize, understand and know. 

Regardless of how we envision the Saints, we can feel reassured that we are surrounded by this great cloud of witnesses even when we feel alone. When we feel overwhelmed, we are surrounded by the community of the Church and to a vast community beyond, reaching as far as to those whose faith is known to God alone. That’s what that means to belong to the community of saints. 

Major Saints become known to us through the scriptures, but in the church calendar of “Holy Women, Holy Men” we discover ordinary people rooted in faith. We think of people in our own time, alive or now living in glory, who know nothing else other than to bring their huge visions into reality, led forward always by unfailing faith. The opportunity is open to us all.

If All Saints’ Day is the central anchor in this Autumn Triduum, then it leads us to the commemoration of All Souls’ Day, today; a day when we remember those who formed us, who molded us. We remember them for the many experiences we had with them, perhaps learned from them. We give thanks to our nearness to the faithful departed, and also to “those who faith is known to God alone.” 

We are led to remember all those who are part of what we now think of as the “communion of Saints” and our particular association with them, in time past. within the life of our God who is always in the present tense. 

Jesus said, “do this in remembrance of me.” “Remember.” When Jesus said these words, he was not talking about us merely remembering him, he was talking to and about his disciples, and all of us, as the ones who would carry on the work of delivering the Good News to the world. Jesus handed on this baton of faith, fashioned in memory, but destined to continue moving into the future.  

Much as does All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day allow us to live in the context of time, past, present and future in all of our creative memories.

To quote T. S. Eliot in the opening lines of the first of his Four Quartets” 

"Time present and time past/ Are both perhaps present in time future/ And time future contained in time past.  If all time is eternally present/ All time is unredeemable."[1]

We tend to think of time like a river flowing ever forward. It’s a subjective perspective and, thus if time is flowing forward, then the whole span of time, along with all actual events, has already transpired and nothing we will ever do or say can alter the past, or the future. 

All Soul’s Day is a day of reflection, as we think and look back, but it is also day of looking to the future with intention. It is a day that speaks to us about our personal intention looking forward. What is your cause? What is your passion? How does that passion, that gift which each of us has, contribute to and for the life of one another and for the life of this planet?  What gifts will you leave behind or carry with you into sainthood?

Reflecting on these questions, we celebrate the Tridduum of Allhallowstide, by learning about ourselves and the gifts we each carry.

And we resolve not to hold back, this year or the next year on Octobert 31st – November 2nd.

We don’t hold back on confronting our own needs to gloss over Allhallowstide. 

Don’t hold back on confronting your own fears of death, or your own hope of everlasting glory and eternal life. 

Don’t hold back on believing in that powerful reward for faith. 

Don’t hold back on believing that life is eternal, no matter how many times we falter in our faith. 

Above all, don’t hold back on understanding the real and absolute underlined meaning of Allhallowstide. 

Don’t allow this season of ghosts, and saints and souls, to sink into a sea of carved up pumpkins with no understanding of what they stand for: our very human fear of death and our need for faithful hope in eternal light of life in the presence of God.  

As Christians we dare to look and hope beyond life as we know it. No matter the season or the feast or festival, no matter where or how interpreted, be it Allhallowstide, Christmas or Easter, or whatever else. In a world that seeks only to satisfy itself as if there were no tomorrow, let us dare to live in expectation that tomorrow, so that filled with gratitude, we will find ourselves, like the Saints before us, walking into the light of God’s heavenly plane, among that great cloud of witnesses: the peaceful presence of the Communion of Saints. 

Amen

Written to the Glory of God

E. J. R. Culver+

November 3, 2024

"For All the Saints" was drafted as a processional hymn by the Anglican Bishop of Wakefield, William Walsham How.The hymn was first published in 1864. 

1 For all the saints who from their labors rest,
who Thee by faith before the world confessed;
Thy name, O Jesus, be forever blest.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

2 Thou wast their Rock, their Fortress, and their Might;
Thou, Lord, their Captain in the well-fought fight;
Thou, in the darkness drear, their one true Light.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

3 O blest communion, fellowship divine!
We feebly struggle, they in glory shine;
yet all are one in Thee, for all are Thine.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

4 And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long,
steals on the ear the distant triumph song,
and hearts are brave again, and arms are strong.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

6 From earth's wide bounds, from ocean's farthest coast,
through gates of pearl streams in the countless host,
in praise of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Alleluia, Alleluia

T. S. Eliot: from Four Quartets

And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.
Other echoes
Inhabit the garden. Shall we follow?”
<...>
Go, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children,
Hidden excitedly, containing laughter.
Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always presen
   

[1] T. S. Eliot Four Quartets (Mariner Books, Houghton, Mifflin Harcourt, Boston, New York), 1943, 13. 

The Conversation

At the end of the note Rebecca Freidenburg sent to our parishioner, she included a quote, which she did not cite, but is a good reminder to us in light of today’s scripture readings, of one way through which we can best view God. Here is the quote:

“O Lord, You have been our refuge in every generation. Before the mountains that came into being, before You brought forth the earth and the world, from eternity to eternity You are God.”

It is a quote from Psalm 90, the very first verse, I believe. What is important for us to note is that the quote sounds out the voice of the faithful, in every generation. From the beginning of time until today, here in this church, at a time when we not only need to find comfort and refuge in God, we feel the need to talk to God in the best way we know how. 

There are hundreds of approaches or viewpoints about who or what God is, what God does, how God reacts, if God punishes, how God guides, forgives and saves. All these have been. and are thought about, by academics, theologians and people like us. There are thousands of ways to talk to God: through whispered prayer, through words written down, or by changing thoughts resting in the minds of the simply faithful, perhaps much like the author of the Psalm I just quoted

In the vast scope of eternity, it really doesn’t matter how you define God, describe God, or how God fits into your normal way of thinking about God. What we think about God reveals a level of faith in God and God’s goodness to all God has created. No matter where we are on the path of faith, we are known by God as part of God’s creation, and because of that we are beloved by God. 

Our species is too young in the vast space of time to try to understand very much about God, but we do know that at the beginning of time, continuing into today, something far beyond our comprehension happened, continues to happen, continues to evolve. Our faith journey continues to lead us to what generation to generation has continued to call from the very beginning: God. God loves it all because God created all. All that moves, lives, has its being and that includes us in life and in death. 

Job was a deeply faithful man who trusted in God’s compassionate mercy and grace, and yet he came to a place where, like us, he had questions about why he was so beset by life’s challenges which caused him so much suffering. The Book of Job has been described as one continual conversation between Job and God, set into five pieces of dialogue that focuses on one theological issue: the issue of suffering. The Job scripture holds no single position or any particular viewpoint in answer to the question of suffering. Like Job, the question we ask and the answer we all seek is, “Why must there be suffering?” 

Why are we made to suffer? Why must hearts be bruised or broken?  It is the question that naturally arises for all of us here today, and especially for those nearest to him: Why did Nate have to die?

Job entered into his conversation with God because he was perplexed and vexed about his own tribulations and suffering. And, perhaps because of his deep faith, Job was able to wrestle with God. We all have friends and families with whom we wrestle for answers to our dilemmas and their advice may or may not be helpful. They are human and have their own human experience of life and thus their viewpoints often differ distinctly from our own. 

Much like Job’s friends, who appeared earlier in the Book before today’s scripture. There was Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamithite, all supposedly dropping in to lend support to Job in the midst of his trouble but who end up trying to make sure Job understands that he has brought all his afflictions upon himself, and that it is God’s punishment for Job due to his continual sin and wickedness.

Lovely! As the saying goes, with friends like these, who needs enemies! They are the ones who sigh, wring their hands and say something like, “It must be God’s will!” Yet it is to them that God is making his points and not to Job. It is against misguided human solutions that increase suffering that God rails, not against the ones who are suffering.

It is not God’s will that God’s people should suffer due to any intervention by God. God has no one viewpoint, and as Job learned, God does not refuse our anger, our hurt, our confusion or our need to wrestle with God about reasons for any or all of suffering have to exist, especially our own. God’s answers may come in different forms, but we can be sure that God is listening and we will find some guidance in the moment, and in the time to come.

God speaks to Job out of the whirlwind of Jobs confusion to remind Job that it was God who created the cosmos and God leaves no doubt about God’s creative power. In Verse 41 of this piece of scripture God asks, “Who provided for the raven its prey when its young ones cry to God and wander about for lack of food?” Creation is interdependent, balanced and is patterned for sustenance and survival and that includes humankind. In other words. God has given us our life to live as part of the creative whole. The rest is simply up to us, along with the good or sad circumstances we either invite, create for ourselves or have no reason to expect.

Job’s conversation with God reveals no hard and fast answers to our questions about why we suffer: Why do the innocent suffer, the faithful suffer? How can we avoid suffering? “Why,” we ask, “why?”

It is a relief to know we do not ask these questions into a void. We do not pray into nothing. God is listening, God knows and even though we receive no answers in the way we like to receive them given all our earthly expectations, we take comfort in knowing that God is very present in our times of trouble, as God was for Job, and will reveal the guidance to comfort and peace when we are ready to receive it. 

Our questions have to do with our earthly experience of living as humankind. While God reminds Job, and reminds us, of all that God created, God gave us very few rules of how to live life within our human reality. So, life happens. Things happen, happily or tragically, as part of living with the free will that God bestowed upon humankind since the time of Adam and Eve. 

Whatever it may be that besets us, be it a pandemic, natural disaster, human error, quick fix solutions without consideration of long-term consequences, forgetfulness, neglect or tragic accident, and all of these are part of our human reality. God created all and all of it lives or dies according to whatever circumstances arise for each and every part of it: floods, hurricanes drought, famine, war, disease or an unexpected instant tragedy due to earthly timing that no-one could predict. 

We do not blame God for Nate’s death. Nor do we believe his death was God’s will. God’s will has to do with compassionate love and comfort in the face of God’s creature’s suffering. It is the same God who loves us, regardless of what we choose to do, how far we rise or fall and regardless of how harshly life comes up to meet us or how we choose to meet life.

It is the same God who is with us, in this very moment, feeling our pain, and who will stay with each of us, in any way we choose to receive God, enveloping our hearts with ever-present love and mercy. 

Reading between the lines of today’s scripture, we hear God’s reassurance in God’s unfathomable ways. We must become more aware that it is not within humankind’s capacity to ever understand those ways or understand the why’s and how’s of the world in which we have been placed. We can recall Psalm 46: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”

We would all like things to be cut and dried, black and white, with no frayed or grey edges in life, thinking that if we try our hardest to do good and not sin, then we will be saved. Yet the story of Job, and indeed, our own particular stories and the entire global story, tell us that things don’t work this way. Life is not that cut and dried, or that reliable.

Yet, we take heart. The good and holy values of kindness and humility, gifted to us by God, will always prevail over cruelty, pride and injustice. Acceptance will always triumph over intolerance and rejection, even if not in the way or timeliness that we humans would prefer. 

Nature will always work to find its balance and will always work to bring us out of our suffering into the light of new possibilities. It is the way of creation, the way of nature, the way of God. God wants only the good; wants only the sustenance and preservation of God’s people. God’s compassion for all that is the only will that will be done. 

Let us this day, hold on to these God-given gifts of love, mercy, grace, each of us building on that Holy presence which carries magnificent power into our earthly existence, assisting us to rise above all our suffering into the light of comfort and peace. 

From the beginning of time, God’s created world had, and has, a plan of which we are a vital and important part. We can take great hope from that understanding. While God’s created world is beyond our capacity to understand it, it is given to us to trust and to faithfully accept and receive. 

Perhaps it was the hand of God that brought God’s conversation with Job before us today. It is difficult for us to grasp the length, breadth, or depth of God’s creative power, and that is a comfort to know. There is a tension between this cosmic, structured order and our experience of suffering for many who didn’t and don’t deserve it. 

From generation to generation, the guidance echoes through the voices from all the saints and apostles gone before: 

“Come unto me, all ye that travail and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.” 

(Matthew 11:28)

This is the answer God is giving us today and we will receive it, each of us in our own way. 

Nate has taken his place at God’s table. His earthly life over, he has entered into the realm of eternal rest and peace, where no suffering exists. The Holy Spirit has led him there, and as he enters into his new life in Christ, he hears God’s words to him, “Welcome home, Nate, good and faithful servant, welcome home.” And as Nate takes his seat at the table with Christ, the heavenly host sings, “Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia." Amen.

Amen.

Written to the Glory of God

E. J. R. Culver+

October 20, 2024

  The Least of These

Once in a while, I will find a cartoon in a paper or magazine that I think is worth keeping and for many years I have held on to one in particular which sits in my St. Francis Day file folder. The scene goes like this: St. Peter is standing in the clouds at his podium just outside the gates of heaven. He has an assistant angel, standing with him, who is looking rather worriedly at the rear end of a dog, tail up, as the dog digs deeper and deeper into the clouds with the clear goal of tunneling under the heavenly fence to find his way into heaven. St. Peter, too, is watching the dog, and with a look of normal acceptancy says, “Doesn’t’ matter how she enters – all dogs are automatically in.”

Of course, I’m a dog person, so the line resonated with me right away. You may be a cat person, so you can adjust the picture. Maybe the cat is sitting on top of the fence as if to say, I can go to heaven when I please, but for now, I’ll just sit here and observe how many humans get in or don’t.

Or maybe you’re a bird or a fish person, or a goat person or a horse person, and you could use the argument that God created all of them before the dog or the cat and that it was only because God saw that it was so good on the fourth day, that God kept going on the fifth day, and it was so much fun that on the sixth day God ended up producing all the other creatures of the earth including humankind. 

Will Rogers said that if he got to heaven and there were no dogs there, he would want to go wherever it was they were. You might want to say the same and, again, you can fill in the blank: if I went to heaven and there were no cats there, no alpacas or llamas, or rodents, birds, fish, goats or horses, I would want to go wherever it was they were. You choose what fits best for you.

These are just bits of humor, but underlying them all lies an affinity each of us might have with a particular piece of creation without which even heaven would be incomplete, and that’s a good thing. For heaven to be heaven, and earth to be earth, God’s creation is completed and renewed at each moment and not one part is to be left out. Not the dinosaur, who did his part, or any others, who when their turn came, continued through creation toward all that and those which have not yet been discovered as part of it. The changes and shifts with the passage of time, create varying necessities and circumstances for each part of that creation, including us.

Within every moment, like pieces of some infinite jigsaw puzzle, whose picture is so vast, we cannot view the whole of it, a continually emerging and evolving Creation has each of us fitting into a particular relationship with each other, within this unfathomable work of God.

As Paul tells the Colossians, “For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities – all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”[1]

A few years ago, I was in Kenya on a mission to youth there. Before leaving, I stayed with friends in Nairobi, where I visited the enormous Nairobi National Park, a reserve for lions, rhinos, buffalo, giraffes and more. I also visited the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. A special reserve for rescued elephants. I looked into the eyes of a young elephant and what I saw there was lingering innocence colored by a growing awareness of how life, as the elephant knew it, at this moment in time, was to be understood and accepted. 

Finding her here, rescued after poachers killed her mother for ivory when she was barely three months old, made me sharply aware of our human actions and their powerful effect on the entirety of creation. I realized that as we make decisions that affect the least of these, we are stepping on to holy ground. It is our decision that either glorifies it or defiles it. 

To claim ourselves as followers of Christ, we have to understand our particular role in the preservation and protection of all that is God’s, whether it be the earth itself or with all the life that inhabits it….be it animal or vegetable. 

The problem lies with the only caveat hinted at by God when he created humankind, and that was that humankind would have dominion over the rest of the creatures. 

One wonders how many times, since the beginning of time, has the question come up regarding that vastly misunderstood directive!

How much we wish God could have been more explicit. After only God knows how many million years, humankind is still either trying to figure out the difference between dominion and domination, the difference between stewardship and power, or simply continuing to think there is no difference between them at all.  

There is no doubt that dominion is power in the hands of those who have it, but it is not meant as authority, the power to enforce or give orders, exploit or crush. Rather, while it grants sovereignty over those without dominion, it carries within its meaning an obligation to stewardship. In other words, while the God-given dominion granted to humankind might offer the opportunity to rule over nature, it by no means grants permission to control and have power over all living things for humankind’s own selfish purposes. This was never God’s intent. God gave humankind dominion over all of nature to ensure it’s continuance and sustainability on behalf of God! 

To have interpret dominion over nature and all living beings, all creatures of the earth that belong to communities other than human in order to serve humankind alone, is an abomination to God. An abomination that is domination and not dominion.

Stewardship, in the biblical sense of the word, can be defined as taking care of, or guarding and protecting, and yes, managing, all the recourses God has provided for the glory of God and the continuation and embellishment of God’s original Creation. “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it.”[2] 

It is a good mantra for us to remember on this St. Francis Day and in all the days to come. It reminds us to equate dominion with stewardship and It reminds us to remember that our call to stewardship of God’s creation is a call for good and honorable stewardship, that is, good and honorable dominion, management and care. Perhaps the most powerful reminder we could have at all, is to remember that God has entrusted God’s creation to our care. God did not entrust God’s amazing creation to our domination, not to our cruelty or neglect, nor to our misunderstanding or mismanagement, or our ignorance, whether it be over the environment and its delicate ecological balance, or over all that lives and breathes. “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it” can only mean including humankind’s dependence on that very same balance for its own survival. 

Perhaps that’s why we need St. Francis and a day to honor him. For Francis did not merely like nature, he held an intrinsic understanding, connection and sense of relationship to all God’s creation that was understood and taught by Christ. He counted himself as a part of the whole leaving nothing out. And, while we can well imagine that he gave thanks and praise for all the beauty he encountered, we do know that Francis deeply resonated with the fragility that exists alongside that beauty. He recognized God’s call to care for all those in need of loving attention: the weak, the vulnerable, the voiceless, the exploited and the abused, no matter who or what they were.

Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family,* you did it to me.”[3] Francis, in his desire to serve Christ, was not satisfied in merely serving those in need, Francis wanted to go deeper. He wanted to become a part of the least of these in the serving. 

The core of Jesus ministry and his expectations of us is that we show special concern for the vulnerable, man, beast and environment, and we look to Francis for an extreme example of that ministry. We are not expected to leave here today, give away everything we own and take to the dusty streets of Portland wearing only gunnysacks in our bare feet, but we are expected to show concern for the most vulnerable in all aspects of God’s creation. 

They will call out to us from many directions, in many different ways and we must resonate with them all as part of the whole of creation. Our compassion cannot be compartmentalized. 

We cannot work to save the oceans and the whales who swim in it, while shrugging our shoulders at poachers in the African jungle. We cannot moan the loss of the wild far away, while we turn a blind eye to continual loss of habitat for cougars and deer mere miles from our own city, or the mowing down of field and forest habitat for small creatures who call it home, in order to build bigger houses for ourselves. 

This does not mean to imply that we are to suddenly send our donations or spend every moment of our time devoted to thousands of causes, but we are to be aware of them and of the fragility of each at the expense of another. And we realize that the poor and hungry during Francis’ lifetime were far easier, safer to recognize and move toward. Even though it is true that it is harder to identify who does or does not need our help or assistance,  we are each called to work for the benefit on at least one who cannot speak for themselves, be it flora or fauna. And, by the way, when I first arrived at Christ Church, I was thrilled to see the bowl of water outside for whomever came thirsty to our doors. 

We are each drawn to a different call….to help to feed or clothe our fellow humans, here in Portland or far away across the world, and to protect fin, feather and fur, whether in our own back yard or anywhere else in the world that calls us

What is the difference between a small elephant who loses her mother due to lust for money or a family who has lost a wage earner, or a small child who loses her family due to the lust for war.

What is the difference? In God’s heart there is none. 

A few years ago, Bethany Sollereder[4] wrote an article for The Christian Century, stating that “the relationship that God has with each individual creature gives the creature’s life meaning….” Adding, “In the creative space of possibility instituted by God in creation, each creature and each species brings glory to God in whatever form it takes.”[5] 

This is a perspective that includes all of us and every living part of creation. We are all, each one of us, human or non-human, companioned by God and are loved and valued within our own circumstances. We are here for the good of each other and for the good of God because within each of us all lies a divine promise that the legacy of our lives is for the good. And what we do for the least of these lifts up all that God desires for them and for us. Thomas Merton said, “…. the grace of Christ is constantly working miracles to turn useless suffering into something fruitful after all.”

And in the fifteenth Century Thomas a Kempis, who wrote The Imitation of Christ: “And if thy heart be straight with God, then every creature shall be to thee a mirror of life and a book of doctrine, for there is no creature so little or so vile, but that sheweth and representeth the goodness of God.”  I’m guessing Kempis would agree that this means slugs are God’s beloved, too.

Six hundred years before modern day monk, Thomas Merton, and 200 years before Thomas a Kempis, St Francis understood all this with a depth of compassion that caused him to enter into it fully and completely. He did so with deep seated joy because all he encountered gave him a sense of connection through the divine grace of God. That is what it’s all about. To be connected to creation is to be connected to God. Francis got that. And we need to get that, too, 

The young elephant looked at me and our eyes met for just a fleeting moment that I will never forget. For in that moment, I felt shame for the circumstances into which humankind had placed her. I felt humility in the face of the challenges she has already faced and will face, and I felt love for her as part of God’s whole to which we both belong. 

Because she is walking through the same moment in time as I, taking her place in God’s creative plan of natural balance and beauty in a march of renewal that has no end, she is, and will always be, my sister in creation.

And because her eyes told me she knew she had become one of the least of these, and because someone saw fit to save her for the benefit of the world, how I wish she knows that I am thinking of her today. She’s much bigger I’m sure, and maybe preparing to return to the wild, or already there, and I think of what God has made, and of the people of Kenya who rescued her, and of the example set for them and for us by St. Francis, and I am deeply and humbly grateful for his lessons learned.

As for where all the dogs are, I think they must be in heaven along with all the other creatures who know only unconditional love and trust. I’m so glad to know they’ll all be there when I show up.

Amen.

Written to the Glory of God

E.J.R. Culver

October 6, 2024

[1]Colossians 1: 16-17

[2]Psalm 24:1

[3]Matt. 25:31-46

[4]Dr. Bethany Sollereder. Research coordinator at the University of Oxford, specializing in theology concerning evolution and the problem of suffering. 

[5]Bethany Sollerder, “The Purpose of Dinosaurs: Extinction and the Goodness of God.” The Christian Century, October 2, 2013, Vol. 130. No.20. pp. 22-26 

  Words of Wisdom

The verses from Wisdom scriptures, which we just read together today, are important reminders of the work of Wisdom. She is described as “a spotless mirror of the working of God….renews all things…..passes into holy souls and makes them friends of God” and, ”against Wisdom, evil does not prevail…she orders all things well.”

In other words, Wisdom is not idle and had no problems figuring out what her work is about. She is called to work with and for God. She acts. With no guile, no pretense, just acts on behalf of God. Doing God’s work in the world which was, is and is to be, equally without guile, against which no evil can prevail.

So, looking at this equation, we are left with the good news that we need to trust Wisdom just as we trust God

No matter how we find ourselves, how deeply immersed we are in our personal depths, or difficulties, or dilemmas, wondering where to turn, who to turn to, who it is we can trust, there is always one source of direction of which we can be sure. That is, God’s. When we pray to God for God’s guidance and directions, we can be sure that what we hear and receive is true. And to receive God’s word, to hear God’s call to follow, we find increasing understanding of our own much-needed insight into dependence on Divine Wisdom. 

In our own evolving wisdom, we begin to let go of our own manipulation of our own existence; manipulation of our own directions and our manipulations of the directions of others. The more aware we become of God’s direction in our individual lives, the more we are allowed to get out of our own way, finding freedom and peace in the letting go and starting to act on God’s behalf, without guile or pretense ourselves. 

To learn to act on behalf of God, that is to become more God-like, takes time, patience, intention, and practice. Wisdom comes from understanding God’s desire for God’s people and all God’s creation and that includes each one of us.  Our insights come from our mistakes, our roads not taken and our ability to let go of our regrets. Wisdom comes from our experience in living, along with our ability to voice our evolving vision and to bring it to reality 

Here at Christ Church, we have living proof of a kind of vision, inspired by God, that will set us on the path to deeper personal and communal wisdom, a path that will reveal new directions and new possibilities. When Mother Jaime saw the tree-covered grounds at this church when she came to serve, she contemplated deeply what might be a next step. She felt the call to create a labyrinth, and now we have a place to which we can go in order to assist in our own quest to find wisdom. A place to contemplate our own next steps and the next steps for our church. 

It is a place waiting for our time, patience, our intention and our practice. It is always there, waiting. Listening to whatever your thoughts may be. Listening and acting for God.

Today, much of the world is in a state of confusion and we feel too small and too overwhelmed to fix it. Yet, while we might feel helpless amidst the enormity of it all, we are not called to despair of it or to stick our heads in the sand pretending none of it’s reality exists. 

We must ask ourselves to contemplate how much and what kind of wisdom and how much of what we have learned over the years of our lives might be useful to God. 

We have survived through years of challenge, confusion, war and divisiveness, and in the grand scheme of things, we are but tiny specks of creative opportunity. Yet we have been given the gift of choice, discernment and decision, just as much as any creature created by God, or every cell of Creation that seeks to survive and to ensure the survival of its species. 

How incredible is the gift of life we have been given. By acting on God’s behalf, to become more God-like in any seemingly insignificant way in order to create something better than it has been before, physically or spiritually is to celebrate God’s gift of life to each one of us and to each other.

As we live through years of tumult between countries, between people, within relationships outside and inside our homes, the time has surely come for us to contemplate different approaches to living which build up loving relationships rather than tear them down.   

In doing so, how much more might humankind be thought of as a “spotless mirror of the working God?” It’s a difficult question to answer quickly and will need much thought. And before we can even begin to think about how spotless our reflection of God might be, we must think about the expression “working God.” God is never still, never resting on God’s laurels, except to step back and see that all is good. If we are to become agents of God, acting in God’s behalf, we will be taking on work that never ceases.

In God’s eyes, all is potentially good, all that is broken can be mended, all that is mistaken can be made wise enough to not make the same mistakes again. I say “can” not “will.” Each one of us can decide whether we are courageous enough or wise enough to be able to step away from our past mistakes, our regrets, our smudged images in our mirror of God, in order to see through the glass clearly into a renewed future. Before we can fix the world we must address our own reflection as God sees it today, be it ever so small. To put it bluntly, Wisdom is calling each of us, as self-proclaimed God’s people, to clean up our act.

It is ours to discern the relationship between dark and light in our lives….the relationship between wisdom and evil. Eternal Light, God’s Light, is the light that transcends any other light, or lightness of being. God passes that Eternal Light “into holy souls and makes them friends of God.” That is our work order. To pass the Light of God into all places of darkness.

We just have to be open to receive the light so that we can be conduits acting on God’s behalf for this superior light. As it says in our prayer book in the Song of Simeon at Evening Prayer:

The Song of Simeon    Nunc Dimittis Luke 2:29-32
 

A Light to enlighten the nations, *
    and the glory of your people Israel.

A light to enlighten the nations. 

Next time you look at yourself in a mirror, What do you see reflected there? What did you expect to see? What would it be like to see yourself reflected in the Light of Wisdom’s reflection? If you could see yourself through the eyes of Wisdom, how would your reflection be altered, your image shift or your understanding of yourself change?

Wisdom holds all the transcendent powers of God, the one Creator. She makes all things new and within each new era, each new emerging generation, she enters into holy souls and creates friends of God. She holds the key to transformation for each one of us and for the universe, and we ponder the last words from the piece of scripture from the Wisdom of Soloman. We are called to ask ourselves how we might work with Wisdom as “she orders all things well.”

In the light of God’s divine Wisdom, we are left to sift through all our human thoughts. The trouble with us humans is that, like Peter, we always move toward human thoughts and never think in terms of reflecting the light of God, because, well, we’re not divine in the way that we understand God as Divine. Yet, we are made in the image of God and yes, we are walking miracles, so we have all the necessary ingredients to become far more divine than our images reflect. 

God had to take on our humanity, had to come among us to try to help us understand how to transcend into a more divine plain. But God the omnipotent, God the Creator also recognized the definitive gap between our humanity and our divinity. Jesus died on the cross, suffering all the pain and agony that any human would through death on a cross. It was not for nothing. It closed the gap between the Divine and the human. It made God accessible for all God’s people. 

Perhaps what is missing is, what we could call, the appreciation gap, the gap of courage, the gap of ennui, complacence, of action and renewal.

Peter, in all innocence, when asked by Jesus who Peter thought Jesus was, said, “You are the Messiah.” In one way the right answer, in another an answer based on Peter’s own interpretation of just what a Messiah could be. Oh Peter, that you could be wiser and more discreet. When Jesus begins speaking about the nature of his coming suffering and death, Peter rebukes him “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” 

Poor Peter, he probably didn’t hear the story’s ending, the part about Jesus rising to life again in three days.  Yet, it is Peter, who keeps on keeping on, who leads us to how to glimpse truths about who we are, arriving full circle from the mistakes of our own human making, to finding ourselves reflected in the “spotless mirror of the working God.”

Like Peter, we each have to formulate in our minds just how spotless our mirror of the working God actually is and just how we are to be true disciples of God. 

Jesus had no qualms about describing what it means to act on behalf of God. He said it’s time to deny ourselves, to stop thinking only in human terms, but to take up our cross and think in God’s terms. Only there will we find the real meaning of what it means to be more Godly; to be less bound by human reason, and more joyously free, without shame, to think and discern in a more God-like way.

Perhaps it would be wise for us to find a special time each week to walk a few times around the labyrinth and, as you walk, ask yourself and ask God, how best you can act on God’s behalf. What are some thoughts and questions God might urge you to ask?

As we think back over our lives, what reflections emerge and what wisdom do they offer us as we view the events of today?  What has Wisdom taught you about using the God-given gifts you possess in acting of God’s behalf in this troubled world? What is it that you can give to world peace in your own special way? 

What is it that you can contribute to assisting in acting to mend or build relationships? Wisdom, when asked, would lead each of us to the answer; to the core of everything we have learned from the life and Wisdom of Jesus, and that is to Love. Then act upon what it means to love on behalf of God.

As we walk, wherever we walk, wherever we sit to contemplate all this, let us heed some words which we would do well to hear again from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. We probably know the words of Chapter 13 so well that we could recite them, as they have echoed for humankind down through the centuries and will continue to sound out in the centuries to come. 

Perhaps the time has come to act upon these familiar words on behalf of God and God’s Creation. Perhaps each week we take a verse to the labyrinth, or when we are walking the dog, or simply sitting still, and contemplate how our acquired and lived wisdom, and our desire to become more God-like, the Divine Wisdom will reveal a true reflection of who we are, and how we can truly lose our life in order to save it. 

13If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 

2And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 

3If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 

5or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 

6it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 

9For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 10but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 

11When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 

12For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 

13And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

Amen

Written to the Glory of God

E. J. R. Culver+

September 15, 2024

Christ Episcopal Church

Season of Creation: Proper 17B

A Reading from Prayers of the Social Awakening, Walter Rauschenbusch

Psalm 19

A reading of “Nothing is Lost” from Ladder to the Light, Steven Charleston

Mark 7:24-37

Border Lessons

We’ve come to a bit of a glitch in Mark’s Gospel but Mark is just the reporter. It is in Jesus’ ministry of teaching that we sense a little glitch and I feel compelled to tell you a secret. Mark’s seventh chapter often strikes fear in the heart of many a good preacher because it’s problematic and upsetting and they avoid it like the plague. Better to stick to Old Testament reading for the day, or the assigned Epistle. Far safer because, after all, who is calling who a “dog?’ Perhaps Pastor Gary would disagree. Maybe Lutheran preachers are more courageous than Episcopalians and latch on to Mark 7 like dog latching on to a juicy bone. 

Nevertheless, this second week during the Season of Creation, we are to remind ourselves of our need for reconciliation, our need to learn, accept and offer welcome all those who differ from us wherever or however we encounter them. Thus, the very least we can do in order to rise to the occasion is to look closely at what is happening in the area where Mark’s record takes place. 

Jesus is out of his own country, visiting a place we now know as Lebanon. A country with different rules, different cultural expectations than those Jesus knew. Jesus was in a place he would consider foreign. A region known then as the Ten Cities, semi-autonomous states under the influence of Roman and Greek cultures, 

Jesus is abroad. This would have been a new experience for Jesus and his disciples. At the time he was young man, anywhere from his late twenties to early thirties, travelling now away from the Jewish world in which he grew up and understood. He had travelled into the world of the Gentiles.

Under normal circumstances, non-Jews, Gentiles, were considered as untouchables, meaning that they were to be avoided as unclean. If you were a Jew you were deemed to be clean and acceptable. Any other than Jewish, you were considered to be strange, foreign and, therefore, not acceptable. 

It's no surprise hear that racism was just as alive and well in the first century as it is today. In the first century, the Jews simply viewed all non-Jews as Gentiles, or foreigners. 

As it was, even though Jesus was out of his own country, his reputation for teaching and performing amazing miracles had reached beyond the borders of his own country. He was surrounded by what he would call the Gentiles. 

This propensity toward racism lends itself to the reason so many preachers tend to avoid this particular piece of scripture. It seems so very out of place with the way we view our present world and our faith in Jesus’ message of love, especially love of neighbor. Yet, we don’t have to go back too far in our own history to find evidence of the same. Nor do we have to look far to see remnants and elements of irreconcilable differences between people who should have learned long ago how to recognize human similarities rather than to point to our differences.

Another major difference between attitudes in the first century and today has to do with animals. In just a few weeks we will be celebrating our life with animals, wild and domestic, barnyard and those in our homes, such as dogs and cats, and, oh, okay, hamsters and pet mice. Regardless of whether they are purebred or a blended variety, once invited into our homes, they become beloved members of our families. We love them as we love our children and will give all we can to ensure their comfort and safety. Not so in Jesus’ day.  All people thought about dogs in the same way we do rats, except for those who have pet rats. On the whole, they were thought of as vermin. 

Knowing all this, and knowing now the atmosphere surrounding Jesus and his disciples, and their reactions to where they find themselves, we begin to notice some similarities and some differences in the two stories Mark is writing about. One is alone and one is surrounded by friends. One comes to seek healing from one who is becoming known for performing miracles. One comes merely in faith. Both are poor. Both may have experienced challenges due to their impediments, physical or racial. 

Even though she must have known she could have been cast aside by all manner of people surrounding Jesus, a Syrophoenician woman, a Gentile, summoned up all her courage and decided to approach Jesus. He was inside a house, enjoying a meal with his disciples and friends, attempting to find some rest and quiet away from the crowds in the streets outside. A mother, a poor woman without means, whose child was suffering from what would be called an unclean spirit at the time, was probably at her wits end regarding how to save her daughter. We don’t need to know the nature of the illness, but even if it were a stubborn case of flu, there were no remedies and a high chance of death. She was desperate enough to beg and she brazenly came right inside the house to drop at the feet of Jesus and to beg for his healing help.

She was begging at the edge of his table, begging like a dog begging for scraps.

And here’s where the story gets a bit too dicey for some among us.

Jesus observes her subservient behavior and tests her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” 

Jesus! What?

But do not fear. When Jesus says, “Let the children be fed first,” He is implying that the time is not right. He is not here to work on behalf of Gentiles, He has come on behalf of Jews in the area. It is not the right time, He reasons for Gentiles to receive such blessings Maybe in time. He is not saying “Never,” but rather, “Not yet…one day.”

The woman is persistent, and he begins to understand that, whether Gentile or Jew, He is not responding to her trust in God’s compassionate response to faithful prayer. Why would she risk everything, perhaps even her life, so desperate was she to find help for her child? Why would she come before a Jew who would regard her as one would regard an unclean dog? 

Her persistence brings a quick and sure answer to Jesus. “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”

Recognizing her answer as one coming from a human being, with the same fears, hurts, joys as any other come to seek Him, he overcame traditional law and immediately learned a valuable lesson of the power of faith coming from other than that which he knew and he responded with compassion and love. Casting aside secular tradition and norms, he responded by healing the woman’s daughter from a distance.   He used his learning to teach his disciples and friends of how the reality of that Good News is to be spread by them out into the world, far beyond their own borders.  Human-made laws, rules, hierarchies have no place in God’s Kingdom unless they are coming from a place of love and compassion. 

Making his way onward, his second encounter takes place in yet another place toward the Sea of Galilee in the Decapolis region. This time another peasant was brought to him, with the help of friends and family. The man was deaf and he was affected with an impediment in his speech. The faithful groups pleaded with Jesus to lay his healing hands on the man, trusting that the man would be healed if only Jesus would touch him. Recognizing the faithfulness of the group, Jesus took the man to a private place, healed him, and sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha”, “Be opened.” The man’s hearing was immediately restored and his speech became clearly understood,

Even though Jesus asked the man and his friends not to tell anyone of this encounter, they were all so overjoyed they spread the word, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”

Faith that is difficult to see at first but exists in some way and deserves love. Faith that is easy to see and identify trusts in God’s love to heal.

What is the manner and shape of our faith? How do we express it? Do we summon up our courage and speak it out loud and clear, or do we prefer to keep it to ourselves lest people judge us and consider us as foreign to the norms of secular society?

How difficult is it to come to church on Sundays? We see our friends, we are greeted by our own kind, we can say the name, Jesus, without fear of reprisal. We find it hard to add to our numbers despite our welcome signs and welcoming ushers, all the while being pretty certain no one would want to join us. Why? Who do we pass by if they are faithful, but show it in a different way than do we?

It was a lesson learned by Jesus from a poor, desperate woman of another culture, another religion, another way of thinking.

How will the Syrophoenician woman have the courage and trust to show up at our door, longing for some healing of the heart, some shoulders to lean on if she has not noticed we are here? 

In order for the deaf man to find a way to a place that can assist him in his need for healing assistance, he must know we are here. 

We Episcopalians are beginning to understand our common faith with our Lutheran brothers and sisters, and we must ask ourselves how we are to connect with all other of our faith with whom we have more similarities than differences: Catholics, Methodists, Praise Churches of all kinds, Jews, Muslims, Orthodox, Reform and yes, those who believe in God, but cannot find their way to God, cannot find faith beyond day to day reason. Could we begin by praying for peace and contentment in their lives, whoever they are? People who at this very moment are wondering where the next bomb will drop and if they will be killed or left to ponder another day why people kill people in the name of power and lack of compassion and understanding. Jesus weeps. 

How many borders, physical, mental, emotional, uninformed must we begin to cross in order to reconcile us to our fellow creatures. How many borders will our degree of faith allow us to courageously reach to take the hand of the one not known?  When have we moved closer to the uncomfortable, only to discover joy in the new?  What borders have seemed to high for us to climb over when we might have invited someone to join us in prayer for God’s healing grace in their lives? 

I smile in solidarity when I pass by the Samoan Assembly of God in North Portland hearing their songs of praise, loudly, courageously, proudly reaching the Grocery Outlet parking lot on Lombard Street. Sing it, friends, I think. Somebody is listening.

Amen.

Written to the Glory of God

E. J. R. Culver+

Coming Clean

As a young child, I can well remember my mother’s voice admonishing me for blithely popping up into my mouth something from the floor where, it, whatever it was, had dropped. This, I still firmly believe, took place long before the 10-second rule came into being! “That’s a dirty thing, now,” she would exclaim, taking it out of my mouth and discarding it. This, too, I firmly believe, took place long before my mother understood that since the deed was done, there were a million or more germs now in my mouth and I was destined to live on, despite the immense peril to which I had exposed myself. I am living proof, however, that she probably really did save me just in the nick of time!

I remember all that spitting out, just as surely as I recall during moments of my life, spitting out epithets which were somehow intended to make my point stronger and more effective. They were not my proudest moments, not the kindest, not the most understanding or tolerant, not the most compassionate or accepting. It is with shame I remember those moments, and shame has a way of sticking in our memories, the recollections rising up unexpectedly, when we least want to remember them. 

Hopefully, we have learned from the memories of all we’d rather forget. It’s how we learn and thus survive; how we transition from some sort of self-imposed emotional imprisonment transitioning into a kind of emotional, physical and spiritual freedom which expands as we mature and learn. Somewhere, at sometime in our lives, we found God and God’s statutes, ordinances and commandments, all lending themselves toward our new way of being. As Christians, all of us always still in the learning process, we are called to love our neighbor in the best way we can.

And just who is our neighbor? The guy next door? The people down the street, across the country, whatever their political leanings or religion might be, or the people around the world in countries we will never see, whose culture and language we cannot understand? 

As people of God, what we are called to understand is this: whether or not any of these understand God or acknowledge God in a different way than do we, God has and will be always God to all, knowing that everyone near or far continues to seek God in some way and in whatever way they choose. God is as near and faithful to each of them as God is near and faithful to each of us.

If you read one of today’s Old Testament readings from our normal Lectionary, you would read about Wisdom, written in the Book of Proverbs.  Wisdom, known in those writings as Lady Wisdom is available to every creature alive. Her message is clear. If we do not follow Wisdom’s teachings, we will suffer. She imparts her Wisdom as if Mother to all living creatures on earth, rich or poor, to anyone who is wise enough to listen.

Her message calls us to listen to the words of the wise, openly and without pride, because the bottom line is that all words of wisdom might well be speaking to us through various people and situations for God. In other words, God is speaking to us through our experiences and learning moments here on earth throughout our lives. 

Can we not stop and wonder at that? To think of all those people throughout our lives who have offered us wisdom to assist us in our work of living satisfying and appreciative lives. I love Pope Gregory’s reading today that speaks to skepticism of the Risen Christ, and yet we barely give birth more than a moment’s thought. We celebrate the birth of a new being, but do we wonder about the miracle of new being coming from what was once non-existent. 

And then, the beautiful wonderings of Howard Thurman, we enjoyed today. “amidst the arrogances of empire; the whisper of those who had forgotten Jerusalem, the great voiced utterance of the prophets who remembered­—to Jesus, God breathed through all that is.”

God breathed through all that is. 

So, given all of this. Given that God breathed through all that is. Why is it we do not stop every now and then, and simply wonder at it all? Why is it that we still lose our tempers, flare up at each other, shed blame, point fingers, go to war at any level?

Just as the scribes and Pharisees asked Jesus long ago, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,

‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;

in vain do they worship me,
teaching human precepts as doctrines.’

That last statement hits home. How often do we teach human precepts as doctrines rather than God’s? How often do we go our own way, rather than in the way of God? How well have we learned to love our neighbors as ourselves in the way God has called us to love? What lessons have we really learned in living with God’s commandments, no matter our religious preferences?

In this Season of Creation, the world in its universe and countless other universes, we are to become acutely aware of our source of life and life abundant, which is given to us and to all by God.

And yet, truth be told, our hands are as defiled as the hands of those who gathered around Jesus, eating in an unacceptable way and misunderstanding his teaching. Our hands are as defiled as the hands and mouth of a child eating something picked up from the ground, innocent as only a child can be but coming away from our experiences without change or understanding of a better way. If our lack of awareness was ours and ours alone maybe that wouldn’t matter. But, what the Season of Creation wants us to learn, urges us to take to heart and remember is that if we are working with defiled hands, everything we touch becomes just as defiled.

The land, the air, the sea and sky are speaking out to us, loudly. Climate change is our problem. We created it, we have to fix it. It is up to each one of us to consider before we throw whatever we don’t fancy into the landfill. It is up to each one of us to find a way to give those things we no longer need to those who would be grateful to receive them.

It is up to each one of us to acknowledge the differences between our neighbors and ourselves, and rather than judging, it is up to us to allow our acknowledgment and curiosity to lead us into new friendships. 

It is up to us to put a stop to animal cruelty when we see it or hear about it. 

I met Hildie the Dog after German Shepherd Rescue called me. She was just over 2 years old, and screamed if you touched her. She could get vicious if you touched her rear flanks or tail. After three and a half years, Hildie and I have become loving friends. I am allowed to touch her all over, although once in a while, she will softly growl to warn me to move my hands up a bit. She still is wary of strangers, especially if they don’t have people or dogs with them.  It is clear that she was severely abused by a human who didn’t understand her kind as a young pup and she will always carry some wariness due to that abuse. But Hildie came into my life at a time when I was praying hard for someone new to come into my life. She was loved by God, and my prayer was answered by God via her first rescuers at Shepherd Rescue. 

Whether it be dogs, cats, rabbits, birds, snakes, snails, rhinos or tigers and the thousands of animal species and insects we cannot ever hope to meet or understand, it is ours to remember that we are to be responsible for their welfare and their future. Because, just like us, they are creatures created by God. They have been placed on this world and when God said we have dominion over them, God didn’t mean we could abuse them, neglect them, ignore them, or pretend they don’t exist. We have been given dominion over our earth, and all it offers up as gifts of God, created and freely given to our care. Trees, plants, the grasses of the world, and yes, even weeds, are ours to tend, control, and use for the beauty of the earth, for the feeding of the world, and for our comfort and contentment. 

We are called to mercy. We are called to be merciful to all Creation. And we offer ourselves into God’s hands asking for God’s forgiveness on behalf of all that we have denied, desecrated or destroyed with our defiled hands. Listen to these words from St. Agustine:[1] 

“’And what is this God?’ I asked the earth and it answered: “I am not he.” And all the things that are on the earth confessed the same answer. I asked the sea and the deeps and the creeping things with living souls and they replied, “we are not your God. Look above us.” I asked the blowing breezes, and the universal air with all its inhabitants answered, “I am not God.”

I asked the heaven, the sun, the moon, the starts, and “no,” they said, “We are not the God for whom you are looking.” And I said to all those things which stand about the gates of my senses: “Tell me something about my God, you who are not He. Tell me something about Him.” And they cried out in a loud voice, “He made us.” 

My friends, it is time for us to come clean. To wash our hands of our assumptive neglect and abuse. If we pray for nothing else during this, the Church’s Season of Creation, let us pray for clean hands and clean hearts in the caring of all that is God’s. In God’s name we pray,

Amen.

Written to the Glory of God

E. J. R. Culver+

September 1, 2024

[1] Saint Augustine. The Confessions. X.9

Christ Episcopal Church

Proper 15

1 Kings 2:10-12; 3:3-14
Psalm 111
Ephesians 5:15-20
John 6:51-58

Eternal Life100

If you really want to know the average life-expectancy rate in your part of the world, or your part of the country, or your city, or by your ethnicity, your economic circumstances, the illnesses you’ve had, the number of surgeries, how the changes and chances of living in the 21st century have affected your psyche, you can go online and find out. Before you do, don’t freak out too quickly if you feel your age is edging to closely to the outside expectation for living in this mortal world. Remember, the numbers are averages. We should all intend to surpass the numbers with Olympic proportions and look forward to living out many a year from now. 

Yet, as we well know, we cannot, nor will we, simply go on and on in this human world without end. And we should be glad of that. First of all, who wants to keep on dealing with world war, technical difficulties,  passwords, billing and insurance options for another bazillion years. And then there’s those self-driving cars. Enough already. 

Jesus says we have an opportunity for eternal life if we eat the bread and drink the wine that reminds us of him. Does he mean we just keep on living in this world with our human ways? On and on and on, without fear of life ever ending on earth? I’m positive Jesus did not mean anything of the kind and, as always, he leaves us to interpret the meaning of his words in our effort to understand. 

Eternal life is as much of a tall order for us mere mortals to understand, just as it was for the good people in his own time. We can well understand the words that his disciples said just after the scripture we heard today, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?”[1] 

The discourse we heard this morning was taking place in Nazareth, when Jesus was home among his own people, having returned as an adult rabbi and teacher. Miracles had already taken place, like the feeding of the five thousand, turning water into wine and more, and his fame was spreading. But, as we know, that fame was lost on most of the people in his hometown. They, like many of us, truth be known, were at one level confused, and at another level, a bit skeptical of what they were hearing, given that most of them had known Jesus as a child, growing up among them. And to be frank, Jesus didn’t make it easy for them or for us to understand. His words didn’t seem to make sense to the people listening to him any more than they seem to for us. 

Humanity wants validation. Signs. Proof. Something tangible. Like the manna that came from heaven in the wilderness. Whereupon, not wanting the people to misunderstand, Jesus said something like, “Look. Be clear. The manna that came down was real bread. Like the bread you made in your oven this morning. It was provided by Moses thanks be to God. But the bread I’m talking about is very different from any kind of other bread you can think of. It is me.”

The locals were clearly not buying it.  Especially from the one they knew well as Joseph, the carpenter’s son. What’s he talking about? Giving us his flesh to eat? His parents are lovely people, but he’s crazy and he needs to get out of town.

Let’s leave them all to it for the moment and consider Jesus’ words ourselves. If you’re like me, you enjoy eating good bread. The problem with good bread is, however, that you can’t eat just one slice. At some point, as with all food after it is consumed, you get hungry and need to eat more. And the food and drink equation is pretty simple and straightforward. If you stop eating food completely, you will die of starvation. 

However, Jesus is not speaking in mortal terms. His invitation to us to eat this kind of bread emerges from a divine perspective and understanding. But the equation works in the divine just as it does in the here and now. 

Putting it metaphorically, if we give our lives to Christ, relying, trusting, having faith in the divine guidance of Christ, believing in his direction and in who and what he was and is, and understanding that  all of this constitutes the bread of life, then our souls and spirits are nourished. God, Jesus God, provides the strength, insight and divinely fed power we need to keep on, keeping on. Jesus says we only need to eat it once. We don’t need to eat it over and over again. The reason we do, the reason we come to church on Sundays to participate in taking in the Sacrament during the service of Holy Eucharist, is to remind ourselves of just where it is we can derive that strength of spirit and food for the soul. Through the spiritual meal of bread and wine our bodies and souls, exhausted by human life and trial, is replenished, renourished, revitalized, giving us the power to live a life built on Christ. Without it, our soul, our spirit and our faithful sense of well being simply dies. 

We can recall the Samaritan woman at the well. She had no need to return to Jesus for more water, once she drank in the living water that was Jesus. The very life blood of Jesus. The blood that sustains the divine in us…the Christ in us…the essence of Jesus Christ Himself. 

In the same way, we can trust in a divine way when we think of Christ’s bread and wine…the bread and wine that is Christ. Participating in the Eucharist is a reminder to remember his death, to remember his resurrection and to believe he will be with us again, and again and again. That his presence in our lives never ends. In other words, to eat the bread of life, to take in the very essence of Jesus as the very giver of life, is to believe in the One who saves us from all that wants to kill our hopes, our joys and our spirits. Rather, we are called again and again to savor all of God’s blessings in our lives. 

Jesus gave himself to the world for the life of the world and it is probably the most important point Jesus wants us to understand, which is why he goes over and over it again. He is making a point about sacrifice. The sacrifice of body and blood that Jesus made for us and for the world. But the teaching doesn’t stop there. Jesus is also speaking of the sacrifice you and I can make for someone else. To give of oneself is the greatest gift one can give. 

A little lamb would be known the people in Jesus’ time as a common yet special sacrifice, to God. Jesus, the Lamb of God, is giving himself to you and to me and to whoever in the world wants to accept him, now and forever, once and for all. His is the greatest gift of all time. He gave it for our sakes, as an offering in payment to God for our ignorant sinfulness. He offered it to God as a single intercession on our behalf.

We do not hear these words with literal meaning. We hear them as part metaphor, part divinely inspired interpretation and as an invitation to walk with faith in God and the one God sent to teach us….the one known to God as God’s Son, Jesus Christ. 

Even though, as we know, Jesus became human in the same way as do we. He was born, grew through a normal childhood with all the childish ways, he grew into manhood, gathering all the same human experiences as do we, loving, grieving, crying and laughing, suffering, dying and rising again to appear as human, eating fish on the beach, just to prove it. So, his flesh was as real as yours or mine, and yet given life through the power of the Holy Spirit. It is this last that we too often forget, and that Jesus never forgot.

So, while we incorporate a divinely spiritual meaning behind Jesus’ words, we do not lose touch with the human, mortal, flesh and blood part of him. Jesus acknowledges his humanity with his references to body and blood, but he is referring to these basic elements of life itself as from Godself. Without these, “you have no life in you.”[2] And again, he refers to himself as he says, “I live because of the Father.”[3] So we begin to understand his equation. When Jesus refers to himself as the eternal Son of the Father, whose life we share, then suddenly we realize that if we abide in Him as He abides in us, then we, too, have the same eternal life. 

In a few moments we will share Holy Eucharist, and consecrate the bread and wine, and we will call upon the Holy Spirit to bless and sanctify the elements so that we may take in the divinity of Jesus, God’s flesh and blood, quickened by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is what gives us life. This is the breath of life….the same breath that formed Adam out of the dust….the same breath that was breathed into us at our conception, raising us as one with the Risen Lord, the second Adam, and we, as mere mortals of our time, are animated by the Spirit and made new, again and again and again, into eternity.

Nobody said this would be easy for us to understand. Yet, it is through this understanding and this willing acceptance of the body and blood of Christ that we enter into an eternal transformation. 

There is a beautiful alternative scripture that precedes today’s Gospel. We’ll hear it next year but let me share a little of it with you now, since it is so relevant to our reflection today.

It is from Proverbs Wisdom Scripture. 

Wisdom has built her house,
she has hewn her seven pillars.
She has slaughtered her animals, she has mixed her wine,
she has also set her table.
She has sent out her servant-girls, she calls
from the highest places in the town,
“You that are simple, turn in here!”
To those without sense she says,
“Come, eat of my bread
and drink of the wine I have mixed.
Lay aside immaturity, and live,
and walk in the way of insight.”

You that are simple. You that are merely mortal. You that seek. You who are mature enough to taste this bread and drink this wine. Turn in here! Throw off your immaturity, come in and live, come in and walk in the way of wisdom and insight. 

We have been given the teachings and heard Wisdom’s encouraging welcome to begin to understand what it is Jesus wants of God’s mortal creatures. 

What we are to learn is the ability to recognize the slow changes that occur in us as our faith deepens and as we dare to enter the divine thinking of Christ. No longer simply existing in a way of life that has no life….living from issue to issue, circumstance to circumstance, deadening the impact of the world’s expectations with short-lived entertainment and escape. 

In the spirit of the Olympic Games we have just witnessed, we are called to enter an event we could call the Divine Olympics. We can call the event the Eternal Life 100 Run. It is an event that has no finish line, and there are no winners or losers.  When we walk with Christ in The Way of Christ, live for Christ more than we live for ourselves, we find it easier to give of ourselves completely, as a living sacrifice and thanksgiving and praise and there is no end to this. 

As we hear the words of the Eucharistic Prayer, so familiar to us, today, really listen to the words, really hear what they are saying. They are our response to Jesus’ request of us to take in God’s Divine gift of life through Christ’s own sacrifice.  The words echo the amazing mystery that has captured human hearts for over 2,000 years!

Sacrifice your skepticism. Sacrifice your need to made human sense of the divine. Sacrifice your need for human proof. Simply allow yourself to give yourself completely to God as you take the bread and drink from the cup. Why?

Because it is by him, and with him, and in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit that we live and have our being. Therefore, all honor and glory must surely belong to God, now and forever into the eternity of which we are a part. 

Amen.

Written to the Glory of God

E. J. R. Culver+

August 18, 2024

[1]John 6:60

[2]John 6:53

[3]John 6:56

Christ Episcopal Church

St. Helens, Oregon

August 11, 2024

12 Pentecost, Proper 14(B)

2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-53

Psalm 130

Ephesians 4:24-5:2

John 34:1-8

Most of you probably remember the Irish author Frank McCourt who, back in the ‘90’s,  wrote the book “Angela’s Ashes.” The book was a memoir of his impoverished and difficult childhood in Ireland. It was a straightforward account of the extremes in life, differentiating between what it means to be merely poor and what it means to be impoverished. To be impoverished means to have little hope of changing anything for the better, knowing only a grindingly harsh present with little reason to speculate on the future except through day dreaming. Describing life as he knew it in Limerick, Ireland, McCourt wrote:

“It was, of course, a miserable childhood……. 

“Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood. People everywhere brag and whisper about the woes of their early years, but nothing can compare with the Irish version: the poverty; the shiftless loquacious father; the pious, defeated mother moaning by the fire; pompous priests; bullying schoolmasters; the English and all the terrible things they did to us for 800 years.”

Provocative words and likely to get a rise out of someone, and they did!

Yet the words have a quality of being at once challenging and yet humorous; truthful in their revelation of difficult circumstances painted with the brush of a loving spirit.

The choice of words provides a contrast between all that is dark and foreboding in a life and a life that is filled with a spirit of promise for those who choose to receive it. 

Much like the complaining Jews sitting and listening to Jesus, even though Angela’s Ashes sold over 5 million copies and was eventually made into a movie, there were plenty of voices ready to discredit McCourt’s account of his life in Limerick. Yet, countering the nay sayers, his brother Malachy would say, “In reality, our life was far worse than Frank depicted. Insane outbreaks of laughter saved us!”

If you have read the book, or plan to, you will know that when Frank wrote about all the challenges of his life, all the disappointments at the hands of people and circumstances, he wrote words of truth, but not words of bitterness, Revealing words yes, yet not filled with revulsion. There is tenderness in his truth, humor in the harshness. There is forgiveness in the recall and a sacrifice of self in the revelation. And so, we accept, try to understand, to laugh and cry with recognition, and forgive right along with him. 

It is the way of truth. The words are not so much self-deprecating as they are simply a retelling of the way it was and, may I say, the laying down of a lifetime’s heavy burden. Had McCourt chosen harsh, accusatory words when describing his miserable childhood, chosen words of bitterness and anger, discredited and destroyed the character of personalities that play a part in his life, he may not have sold 5 million books.

The truth is, we all appreciate truth, and we recognize the ring of truth when we hear it. Then, we must ask, why is it so hard to get at our own truths, our own realities. We too often use words and phrases that cover our truths, words that will satisfy conventional acceptance.

Much of the time, we are unable to find word that describe our own truths in the daily midst of our struggling to be found, to be heard, and it takes time to figure out who and where we are. We want to be counted as relevant in the world as we find it and yes, we want desperately to be loved.

Yet too often we allow ourselves to suffer from sagging spirits and impoverished egos, desperately seeking roads to happiness through whatever means to ensure that the world knows that we are who and what the world expects us to be and that we are worthy of the world’s acceptance. 

We become adept at ambiguity, using words to cover realities and as protection from revealing our own truths. We rely on throw-away phrases: have a nice day, have a good one, no problem and, in answer to the inquiry,
“How’re you doing,” we have an inevitable short answer, “Fine.”

Fine. What does it mean. Fine. Does it mean we are sustained for now…for the moment…so used are we to the peaks and valleys of our own moods and dispositions. Proving that we have conquered the challenges with which we struggle every day. That we are survivors in the game of living. 

We speak to one another as if we are speaking in truths but sometimes our words mask our true feelings. I feel angry, I feel misunderstood, I feel hurt, why can’t we sort things out? Too often we walk away unfulfilled or resentful and begin to conjure up rationale, and false thinking about ourselves or others. And when we do this, we unwittingly become accomplices in the tearing down of the very fabric of God’s hope for God’s creation and the Holy Spirit is sorely grieved 

The problem with all this is that while we may have triumphed over the challenges with which life hands us, we want the world to love us before we can even love and accept ourselves. Just as we are. Just as God made us.

There is a certain sadness in this very human struggle of contrasts….between a sadness that reveals our lack of acceptance about the truth of who we really are, and the God-given beauty that resides immovably within each of us.

There is a deep, yet hard to acknowledge, sadness in our knowing that through our misplaced words and actions, revealed in bitterness or disappointment, we sometimes sabotage the very fulfillment we are seeking, and in doing so, we can drain the well of hope that someone else might be deeply depending upon.

We can get upset if someone doesn’t act in the way we want them to or do what we want do want them to do. We tend to admonishment rather than seeking other’s perceptions of how things might be. We transfer our disappointed expectations into feigned insults. We are hungry for something, we aren’t sure what, and we hunger for some life-giving sustenance to shore up our ailing spirits. 

As a child, Frank McCourt recounts the time of his confession of his sins to St. Francis. Hearing his confession, his priest reminds Frank, “God forgives you, and you must forgive yourself. God loves you, and you must love yourself. For only when you love God and yourself, can you love all of God’s creatures.”[2]

Easier said than done amidst our worldly skepticism, as it is now and as it was in Jesus’ day.

Jesus said, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty….” Yet, people who knew him complained when they heard these words. Who was Jesus to be saying this, they asked among themselves. Jesus was speaking radical words. Who was he, the son of a simple carpenter, to be claiming truths that seemed implausible, that seemed too farfetched to comprehend. They gossiped among themselves and faced Jesus down. Yet Jesus did not flinch from his truth, his insight into the living truth that is ours to accept and live by. 

And the truth is that when we live into the radical claims that Jesus is making, we open ourselves to receive insights into understanding just what it is he wants us to understand. Just as Frank McCourt discovered, it is far easier said than done. 

For Jesus, the insight doesn’t come as a result of our Sunday morning piety. It is not revealed by who we wish we could be or pretend to be or even, really, who we really are, our status, or may I say, even our decision to live a Godly life. 

We receive spiritual insights by living fulfilling and satisfying lives through God’s grace and a deep awareness of that grace.

It is through grace that we learn to forgive as we have been forgiven. When we have the courage to ‘tell it like it is’ about ourselves. When we have the courage to face up to our own truths. When we have the courage to turn to God, made known to us through the truth of Jesus Christ, then we are able to receive that which Jesus offers us so freely – the true bread of life. 

As Christians it is through a deep love of Christ and by walking in His Way that we find the strength to summon up this kind of courage to be simply who we are, love for who we are created to be. No more. No less.

Perhaps we should pay closer attention the words of Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians wherein he states, “let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear and do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God.”

Words that build up are like good food, filled with life-giving nutrients, allowing our words to carry gifts of the Spirit to fill hearts with grace and to deepen our relationships with one another and with God. 

During my ministry at Grace Memorial Episcopal Church in Portland, part of my work there was to run the annual Grace Art Camp. One year our Artist-in-Residence created a beautiful design for the camp t-shirts and, after making their design, the campers were asked to print a word of his or her choosing on the shirt. At the end-of-week assembly, I asked the children to tell me some of the words they chose to wear on their t-shirts. Every week of camp, I heard the same responses: peace, joy, kindness, happiness, imagine, laugh, mystery and yes, you probably guessed it, truth!

I also heard words life-giving words like: strawberry, pizza, blueberry, hamster, puppy, bird, fun ….and grandma!

Then I played a game with the kids. After hearing twenty or so words, I asked the 140 or so children to, all at once, shout out their words through the rafters of the community center, sending them high into the sky, up into the heavens, where the words can float around the clouds, where we can imagine them gently bobbing up and down, sometimes coming near people when they least expect it, and leaving the bodies they inhabit feeling filled with new life, new hope and renewed faith in themselves.  

Fanciful? Yes. It’s a child’s game and yet, for some of those children, it was a prayer of hope. For some children came from difficult and challenging circumstances at home and did not all enjoy a peaceful existence. Even so, I never heard angry, bitter words being lifted up, no accusatory words, words of complaint, words of self-serving grandeur, no attention-getting words, words that tear down rather than build up, words that harbor fear and doubt rather than words that pray for confidence, encouragement and love. 

Rather, the words each group of children chose, week after week, were life-sustaining words, much like the words Frank McCourt used to portray the difficult circumstances of his own life. 

Like those, so long before us and those coming behind, we are invited as God’s children to choose to live out the words that feed us well, that is to observe the contrasts of entering into, and living with, the outcomes of whatever words we choose to use. 

We are invited to speak as God would have us speak and to reap the joyful benefits of God’s grace in return:

The grace that always chooses forgiveness and pardon… for our own transgressions and for those of others……

The grace that enlightens our thinking and sheds our secret burdens of guilt…..

The grace that banishes resentment and renews and refreshes the soul.

At our baptism we are invited to inherit all of God’s creation as both its recipient and its caretaker…..whether new born, age 6, age 66 or more. We are sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever. Marked. Sealed. Forever. 

These are words that set us free to live a life that is formed by radical truth bathed in love. 

Just as Jesus declared his loving words of truth to a hurting world, we are free to speak truths we may have never dared to speak….

We are free to speak words of faith, no matter in what way, or however clumsy they may be, to imitate Christ’s love in the world….

We are free to speak with courage, to imitate Christ’s radical forgiveness in the world……

We are free to speak words of sacrifice, to imitate Christ’s living example of humility in the world. 

And we are free to speak words that lift the human spirit so that they can fly with joyous freedom throughout eternity…….so that they might mingle with words of hope, promise and love that have been sent to meet them there.

“I am the Bread of Life. Who ever eats this bread……

Whoever builds up the Kingdom of God with kindness in the face of angry judgement….

Whoever speaks truth with tenderness, even though the truth be hard…..

Whoever finds the fullness of forgiveness, even in the face of gross injustice…..

Will take in the bread of life that sustains all Creation… be raised up at the last day….. ….and live forever.

Amen.

Written to the Glory of God

E. J. R. Culver+

August 11, 2024

Year B Proper 10

2 Samuel 6: 1-5, 12b-19

Ephesians 1: 3-14

Psalm 24

Mark 6:14-29

Bible Stories

Just in case you think the Bible is too highbrow, today’s readings

should help to dispel any of those misperceptions. Murder, lust,

seduction, domestic strife -- who needs the movies!

These Bible stories are not the ones we heard in church school….they

are the parts of the Bible, Old and New Testaments alike, which most

church school teachers never mentioned. Although apparently, they

thought stories such as Jonah being eaten by a whale, or Daniel being

thrown into jail with the lions, was ok for young, impressionable

minds.

No. Today’s stories are for grownups. Stories about the rich and

powerful run amok, stories of manipulation, the misuse of power, and

hidden crime. Grownups know all about these kinds of stories. They

weren’t new thousands of years ago, and they’re not new now. We

live with them every day. But these are not fighters in our urban or

modern-day streets. Or so-called leaders, throwing their weight

around, or shooting bombs at innocent people. No, these are the titans

of the Bible who are dishing all this up.

We can probably all remember learning that the disciples were

jockeying for first place with Jesus…. let me sit on your right, let me

sit on your left, me, me, me, me first. The disciples were all trying to

be first, to be the favorite of Jesus, to be the greatest 1 . And we see this

wanton need for power played out today. Everybody who’s anybody

in politics, on a competitive career path, and within conclaves of fans

and admirers, backers and supporters for all various reasons always

have, and most unfortunately, always will, search to be first, to be the

most admired, to be famous, to get the glory, to be the “one.”

David was anointed to be the “one,” the ancestor of Jesus. And, since

he has the power to do it, he is moving the Ark to his new home in

Jerusalem. The Ark, built by Moses himself, was the deep and

profound focus of the Divine Presence of God to the Jewish people.

So, David, filled with overwhelming joy at this blessing, honors God

with dancing and music.

In the process, by his public display of abandon, he endears his people

to him even more and they are even more blessed by David as he

feeds them with abundance. David has the power to treat his people

according to his will. He can treat them well to keep them loyal or he

can use his power in other ways to gain his own ends.

Just over a thousand years later, Jesus is pointing out to his disciples

that the ones they think of as leaders or rulers, or ones with authority,

really want to lord it over them…and be tyrants. In other words, they

are out to grab power and if they have to step on their people to get it,

they will. Jesus was talking, of course, about Herod.

Well, we have to have someone to head up government, we have to

have someone to run the company, the store, the church, So, we have

kings and presidents, CEO’s and COO’s, the store owner or manager,

or whoever it is we call “the boss.” All are given the responsibility to

uphold the values of their chosen constituencies and most probably

work hard to do that, keeping the common good in mind. All this

being true, however, most also know that their visibility depends on

how powerful they are perceived to be, and that to uphold a position

power takes work.

The higher they are, the more they stake their future success on how

they are perceived, and their legacies, too often, have more to do with

how well they reach the pinnacle of success than how much they truly

loved their neighbor. Of course, I’m generalizing, but I think we

grownups might agree that retaining power is a full-time job and that

rulers, be they kings or presidents, or bosses of whatever, will

sometimes, may I say, do what they feel must be done, in order to

maintain and protect their position of power,

Each of today’s Bible stories bring home the point. David was

married to Michal, who was a princess of Israel, the daughter of

another power-guy, Saul. She knew her way around powerful men.

She was David’s first wife and at first, she loved him. As King of

Judah, David had five more official wives, each of whom bore him a

son. I’m not counting unofficial wives and concubines, and all this in

a little over 8 years. But I digress… that’s an entirely other story.

Today, we have a mini story about power. Saul wasn’t thrilled about

David, but just to show who was in charge of the situation, he ordered

David to bring a bride price from his deep enemies, the Philistines.

He ordered David to bring one hundred Philistine foreskins.

The push for power is on, and David can taste the role of king. He

accomplishes the deed. (I’m glossing over that part of the story.)

Michal helps David out of several plots Saul has planned in order to

kill David, and so the relationship between Saul and David is split and

they and their descendants become entrenched in the struggle for

power and the kingdom. Saul breaks his word to David and marries

Michal off to another. Saul is killed and David makes a deal with her

then husband to return her to himself. The soon-to-be poor ex-

husband is devastated but David doesn’t care. He wants Michal and

Michal he will have. He sends her first husband away, and Michal’s

heart becomes hardened against the man she once loved. I mean it’s

not easy to keep up with them all. Is this what Bible soap operas are

made of, or what!

It does seem fair to say, however, that knowing this, one can

understand Michal’s feelings as she saw him take all his clothes off in

full sight of all the slave girls. She couldn’t stand seeing him, in what

to her eyes, seems undignified and unworthy of the King of Judah.

She was disgusted, even though David was glorifying God by dancing

with abandonment and joy. And so, as Samuel tells us, she despised him.

David was king, and David was blessed by God. If that’s not a power-

packed ego booster, I can’t think what is. He was on top of the world,

possessor of all he could touch and see. He was a blessed man,

alright, and I’m sure we can find people in our own time who would

consider themselves blessed with power.

The problem is that when people think of themselves as blessed with

the powerful position they have, they begin to think it is because of

who they are, rather than someone who has received the blessing or

trust from another, especially when that “other” is God. They begin to

forget the source of their power.

In David’s case, he celebrated God in a most visible and unforgettable

way, using his power to do anything he wanted in the name of God’s

glory.

Yet privately he forgot that all he was, and was created to be,

depended on God. The slippery slope David climbed upon, was his

forgetfulness about God’s part in his success. The slippery slope

grabbed David, as if it were the devil itself, and down he went into an

abyss of sin and shame.

Then there’s Herod, a far less likeable character than David, and not

blessed so much by God. Herod became king as an accident of birth,

not by God’s blessing. Mark reminds us that Herod was hearing more

and more about Jesus, and his popularity with the people, and he

found himself surrounded by differing opinions about just who this

Jesus was. Somehow, he became convinced this person was John,

whom he beheaded. We can suppose this is what guilt can do to a

person.

Mark tells us how this came about and presents us with one of the

grisliest stories in the Bible. The background story has Herod taking a

kind of liking to John the Baptist at first. He is impressed and not a

little awed by him. All was well, until John voiced the problem of

Herod marrying his brother’s wife, Herodias, illegally. So, of course,

Herodias is not a great fan of John’s. She waits for just the right

moment, when the king is a good mood, with his court around him,

and enjoying a lovely dance by his daughter, another Herodias. And

what well-pleased and proud father has never said to his beautiful

daughter, “Ask me for whatever you wish, and I will give it?”

I like to think that if their daughters asked for the head of the local

priest, those fathers would stop short and send the child to bed without

further ado. But not Herod. The difference is power, or the warped

sense of need for power. His need to save face after making the oath

to give his daughter whatever she wanted, in front of his wife, his

court and anyone else within earshot, leaves him little choice but to

play to the crowd, to do as he swore to do.

One can’t help thinking of Pontius Pilate in another story. He, too,

had a public to satisfy.

So, we are left to ask. When will any of this kind of thing end? It

isn’t showing much sign of easing up any time soon. Here we are,

witnessing the same thing all over our world today.

However, my friends, when we find ourselves beginning to think this

is what normal living is all about, a game of struggle for power, for

fame, status, and visibility, we are called by God to remember the One

we call King. Our One God. Our Alpha and Omega, before whom

we would willingly dance for joy, would willingly play music and

sing again, as soon as we are able.

Our king is the one who gives us untold power, rather than taking that

power upon Himself. Our king brings the power of love into our

hearts, so that our joy may be complete. That we may not fear any

adversary. Our God is the One who chose us as His own adopted

children, from whom we inherit eternal life, and from whom we

receive all the spiritual blessings and who covers us with the comfort

of His grace. It just doesn’t get any more powerful than that! It is a

real and absolute call for celebration and dancing in our hearts, minds

and souls in any way we choose.

We are left to ask ourselves. Who do we know, or see, or watch on

the evening news, or on whatever social media feed you prefer, who

dare to” dance before the Lord?” How often do we see anyone letting

it all go with abandon in order to celebrate a new beginning, a new

and special blessing in life due to an awareness of God’s presence?

What part of you is your David, longing to leap and shout for joy for

the blessing of your God? And what part of you do you know to be

Michal, holding back, not wanting to recognize, or enjoy another’s

response to God’s blessings?

We are left to ponder, to try to recall when we actually have, like

David, allowed our hearts to leap and dance for joy at the very thought

of God. When have we ever allowed ourselves to let go and let God.

And when we did such a wild and crazy thing, did we notice a Michal

staring at us disapprovingly, and did we stop? Or putting it another

way, when has your Michal prevented another from fulfilling their

urge to celebrate? Or when has your Michal prevented you from the

same?

Herein lies the secret to our own stories. What do we know of the

David and the Michal that dwell within each of us? Who is your

Michal speaking to when she sees your David yearning to dance to the

music before God?

I believe we are called to dance like David, even if it is only in our

hearts and minds. We are not called to dance for our God, we are

called to dance because of God, through God and with God, with our

feet, or our minds and with our hearts. And, thus, as God’s own

children we can feel truly blessed, knowing that, like David we are

forgiven for our mistakes, our mis-directions and our forgetfulness,

and God loves us even more when we try, try again.

David was blessed, and he celebrated that blessing. But I’m not so

sure about Herod, yet I’m pretty sure he shouldn’t have messed with

John the Baptist like that, and that, for once at least, he could have put

his need for power aside, showing a little wisdom rather than cruelty.

Too bad, Herod and Pilate, too. You may have felt powerful at the

time, but anyone, even the local folks could tell you, you need to get

your head straight before you put someone’s head on a platter

just to impress everyone with your power to do it. And, you’d

better get your facts straight, too, especially when you give in to

popular trends to crucify someone’s body and soul.

So it is for all of us. To bow to power rather than to the common

good, too often leads to the death of someone’s soul. After all, for

all the thousands of years to come, if you bow to power at the

expense of someone else’s heart, you won’t look powerful at all.

The way history tells it, you’ll look exactly like the Herod’s: past,

present and future….powerless, petty, and pretty darn pathetic.

So love, laugh and celebrate all the powerful alternatives you

have for your own legacy… to be remembered only for your

gratitude, humility and faithfulness to the one true leader in the

world today, who will never lead you astray: Father, Son and Holy

Spirit, One God, now and forever.

Amen.

Written to the Glory of God

E. J. R. Culver+

July 14, 2024