Author: Rosemary Lovelace

Proper 19A – George Yandell

From the Exodus reading – Israel is saved by a tsunami that God uses to kill all the Egyptian warriors and their armaments. God was angry that pharaoh had enslaved and mistreated the Hebrew people for generations. We are created in God’s image, so anger comes naturally to us.   Anger and forgiveness are two poles of human nature. The one, anger, is a natural human emotion. Some child psychologists think it’s anger at not getting our way as one- and two-year-olds that creates distinctive, innovative character in adults. How we cope with our anger makes us either disciplined or despairing, self-blaming or other-blaming. Anger drives much of our behaviors throughout life. One mentor of mine said that anger is a resultant emotion- that the primary emotion is fear, and very often anger rises unbidden out of our fears.  

Forgiveness is an acquired attitude of action. Where anger happens, it comes unbidden into us, as do all emotions. Forgiveness is a learned behavior, learned at great price. Forgiveness requires sacrificing anger and pride, and accepting others, and God, in humility.  

Is it any wonder that so much of human energy is devoted to getting even? You and I spend ½ of our tax dollars helping our country prepare for revenge. We have defensive weapons and systems that keep our capability for revenge as high as possible. Anger is a defensive emotion. It helps animals survive when threatened. The Medieval Church labeled anger as one of the 7 deadly sins. The emblem for anger in the middle ages was the wolf. Being angry is hard enough, but when it grows and festers, it eats away at our souls like a starving wolf. A person consumed with anger it not capable of forgiveness.   

Forgiveness has been called a God-like trait. “To err is human, to forgive divine.” In truth, forgiveness means rising toward holiness in daily living. The effect of one human forgiving another is almost unbelievable. Human forgiving, reconciling ourselves to others, comes as close as we can to the compassion Jesus lived out.   

Today’s gospel describes in graphic terms the effects of forgiveness, and of unreconciled anger. In response to Peter’s question, “Lord if another member of the church sins against me, how often shall I forgive?” Jesus tells the parable of the unforgiving servant. Jesus contrasts the responses of two figures in the story, the secular ruler and the first slave. The ruler cancels a debt of $10 million in today’s economy.   

The slave then encounters another who owes him $100, and treats him legally, but without forgiveness, and then in turn the first slave is dealt with harshly because of his unforgiving actions. Jesus shows that forgiveness cannot be compromised without undesirable consequences.  

In Matthew Jesus demands that we think of forgiveness as a life and death proposition. “Should you not have had mercy on your fellow, as I had mercy on you?”   The learned behavior of forgiveness is never easy. It demands that we pay a high price, as did the ruler. Learning forgiveness, forgetting our anger, humbles us. It’s the path that builds up the spirit of God within us, and within our communities. Forgiveness and showing mercy are the highest activities of human aspiration. They spring from hearts yearning to love God fully.  

I believe forgiveness has 3 stages. 1) Accepting my anger with another and identifying it. I have to know what I’m feeling in order to channel my emotion in disciplined loving. Robert Hughes in his book The Culture of Complaint says “I must hold no one else responsible for my failings but me.” 2) Putting myself in the other’s place. Often, if I use my imagination about someone I’m angry with, I discover that my impatience, frustration or rage is triggered by his rage, and I can begin to empathize with him, and figure out how to care for him in spite of his anger. 3) GO to the person I’m angry with, tell him, and ask to talk about it to work out reconciliation. This is the hardest step- last week’s gospel demanded it, though- do you remember? Forgiving someone from my heart demands face to face reconciling. Forgiveness shrinks the egos of both the forgiven and the forgiving one and allows room for Christ to expand within us and within the communities in which we operate.

Richard Rohr has said, “The most amazing fact about Jesus, unlike almost any other religious founder, is that he found God in disorder and imperfection—and told us that we must do the same or we would never be content on this earth.”  

The parable and the words of Jesus indicate that the faith community is to express forgiveness freely and continually, over and over, without ceasing. Forgiving is not just not punishing; it is a positive, powerful, transforming action.  

Forgiveness always works. Even if I seek out someone for whom the problems between us don’t allow him to accept reconciliation now, I have opened a door, and I can go on in life without the unfocussed, unhealthy anger and guilt dragging me down. That’s the good news- our Lord is incredibly, recklessly merciful, and forgives all our debts. Our task is simple- we must learn to sacrifice our pride and our desire for retribution in order to live as forgiven partners with Jesus.  

Proper 18 – Bill Harkins

Good morning and welcome to each of you! Grace to you and peace on this 15^th Sunday in Pentecost. The texts given to us today can be challenging in a number of ways. If we understand sin as somehow “missing the mark” in relation to one another—a definition based on a Greek archery term—then we quickly understand that we are all in need of grace, because no one among us is perfect. We all miss the mark at times. The Good News is that we hear in this text an invitation: right now, as we are, we can do the good, hard, messy work of looking at ourselves as members of the Body of Christ, and this includes people who are every bit as difficult as we are. Any good 12-step program has a variation on a theme of acknowledging that, often, the things that most bother us about other people—the ways others “miss the mark” can be the very things we don’t like about ourselves; those things, that is, that most need our attention in the form of what Carl Jung called “shadow work.” And the ultimate goal of wrestling with these things is reconciliation—with our own shadow selves, and with one another and the world. As Christians, we believe that Christ is reconciling us to God and to one another… an outward and visible sign of a grace. Even church conflict can be an opportunity to practice reconciliation; it can be sacramental. Christian community — all community, really — is, as St. Benedict said, a “school for souls” in which we learn not just how to live, but also how to experience abundant life. Jesus knew that we understand best and deepest how God loves and forgives when we are, in our limited but growing way, extending that love and forgiveness to others—and to ourselves.   

As both a priest and a clinician, I believe that as long as we need everybody to be happy and agreeable, we’ll always be anxious because we are trying to control what we cannot control. Recently, I was talking with two priest colleagues, one of whom got her doctorate in American Literature prior to going to seminary. The other colleague asked the English scholar if she knew much about Shakespeare, to which the former professor replied, “Not as much as he knows about me.” This resonated deeply with me, and I found myself being thankful for two wise and witty colleagues, and remembering my own relationship to King Lear, my favorite of Shakespeare’s plays. It is a play about fathers, and daughters, and sons, of course, and about the vicissitudes and finitude of human nature. It is a tragedy, yes, a cautionary tale, but it contains much wisdom about life in families, and about kindness, despair, control, compassion, and redemption. It is also a play about missing the mark, and becoming reconciled by forgiveness.   

My favorite part of King Lear is actually a subplot in which the aging Earl of Gloucester is, as the wonderful author Wendell Berry puts it, “recalled from his despair so that he may die in his full humanity.” As Berry reminds us the old Earl has been blinded in retribution for his loyalty to King Lear. And, like Lear, he is guilty of what my erstwhile colleague Walter Brueggeman called an operational theology of scarcity: he lives as if life is predictable, ultimately knowable, and within his control. He is, in short, in despair—and he is unable or unwilling to become reconciled to the ways he has missed the mark. Although I am a pastoral psychotherapist, and the term “theology of scarcity” is not in any diagnostic manual of which I’m aware, I see this all the time in my work. And I have seen it in myself. Moreover, despite his many admirable qualities, the Earl of Gloucester lives as if there is not enough grace to go around, and as such, the prevailing paradigm is that his life is primarily informed by that in relation to which he is afraid. Gloucester is asking the wrong questions until it is almost too late, and then, he encounters the right teacher. The results are predictable. He has falsely accused and alienated his loyal and loving son Edgar. Exiled and sentenced to death, Edgar dresses as a drifter and, thus disguised to his father, he becomes in fact his father’s guide—his father’s teacher. Gloucester asks to be lead to the cliffs of Dover, where in his despair he intends to throw himself onto the rocks below. Edgar’s self-appointed task, Wendell Berry tells us, is to save his father from despair, and he succeeds, for Gloucester dies eventually as Shakespeare puts it, “Twixt two extremes of passion, joy and grief…” (v. iii, 199). He dies, that is, within the appropriate boundaries of human living, as God intends.   

This is a cautionary tale and teachable moment not only for priests, and pastoral counselors and family therapists—the family systems dynamics in Lear are fascinating—but for us all. It is a journey less Odyssean than Abrahamic, because the final destination is uncertain. Odysseus longed only to return to Ithaca, and Penelope, and all that he knew, while Sarah and Abraham left on a journey whose ultimate destination was, and remains, unknown. As such, King Lear is fundamentally a story about transformation, and choices, and grace. Edgar does not want his father to give up on life. To do so is, as Wendell Berry puts it, “to pass beyond the possibility of change or redemption.”   

And so Edgar does not lead his father to the edge of the cliff, but rather only tells him he has done so. Gloucester renounces the world, blesses his ostensibly absent son, and as Shakespeare directs, “falls forward and swoons.” Upon regaining consciousness Gloucester is led by his son to believe that he has survived the fall. Pretending to be a passer-by who has seen Gloucester’s tumble, Edgar assumes the remarkable and life-giving role of a spiritual guide to his father. In an exchange that will be familiar to many who have tried to help family members in trouble, Gloucester, dismayed to find himself still alive, attempts to refuse help: “Away, and let me die” (IV, vi, 48). And after several lines in which he attempts to persuade his father that he is a stranger, Edgar says to his father what are for me the most significant lines of the play: “Thy life’s a miracle. Speak yet again.” (IV, vi., 55). In so doing, Edgar calls his father back from despair and “into the properly subordinated human life of grief and joy, where change and redemption are possible.” Gloucester is transformed in the process by becoming reconciled to himself, and to the world.   

Well, as the father of two sons, I have many memories in relation to which I identify with Gloucester—memories, that is, of my sons becoming father to the man. And there have been other young teachers as well, who called me back to life when in my hubris and fear—my operational theology of scarcity—I neglected to ask for God’s love and grace and mercy, and I missed the mark.   

Many years ago, between stints at Vanderbilt University, I spent a year at Atlanta’s Egleston Children’s Hospital, as a chaplain intern. Vicky and I were young, poor graduate students, and we had two very young sons. Truth told most days at the hospital were terrifying for me. The hospital treated the sickest children from several states around, and I struggled to maintain my fragile objectivity while visiting the children and their worried parents. At night, as I read to my sons and held them close to me, I worried over every sniffle and cough. I imagined the worst that could happen because I saw examples of it every day. In my fear, I became more and more isolated, and a part of me shut down and went away.   

One beautiful Easter Sunday morning, late in my internship, I was assigned to the Children’s Chapel. In my arrogance, borne of fear, I told myself that I had more important things to do, and better places to be, and that I had earned the right to be home with my family. I wanted to be anywhere but at that hospital. And yet, there I was, in the makeshift playroom that doubled as the Chapel on Sundays, surrounded by toys, and art supplies, and bereft of children save one, lone soul in a wheelchair, patiently waiting for the chaplain to arrive. His name was Walter, and he was from Homerville, Georgia. He was 9 years old, wearing glasses with lenses the thickness of a coke bottle, and his kidneys were failing. He desperately needed a transplant. His mother introduced him, and he reached out his hand to shake mine, and no doubt needing some blessed time alone, his mother departed for the cafeteria, entrusting her son to my care. In an off-handed, even careless way, I suggested that we draw together. He seemed excited by this, and said, “Will you draw the animals from Noah’s Ark?” I agreed, and we sat together, juice and cookies our Easter morning Eucharist, me awkwardly drawing animals from the ark in a disinterested way, Walter smiling, and nodding approvingly, enthusiastically suggesting new animals in turn. All the while the Easter sun rose over the azaleas and dogwoods blooming in the courtyard outside and there I was, wishing to be somewhere else, even as I congratulated myself on my art therapy as pastoral care. I was not fully present—not paying attention—not fully alive in that moment…missing the mark by a long shot.   

When Walter’s mother returned I arrogantly assured her that we had been having a marvelous time. “We’ve been drawing,” I said, delighted with my pastoral art therapy on the fly. “Drawing?” she asked. “Walter can’t draw, chaplain. He lost his sight a year ago because of his illness. Walter is blind.” Well, there it was; my own isolation and self-importance exposed, Walter serving as my own version of Edgar, Gloucester’s son, and me, lost to his reality. I sat there in my shame and embarrassment, and in the silence, Walter’s small hand groped for a crayon on the table, picked it up, and held it out to me, smiling, while his other hand clasped hard around mine, wanting me to announce having drawn one more animal. Because, you see, it was not the pictures that mattered. After all, he could not see them. What mattered was relationship. He had forgiven me a long time ago. Like Gloucester, I was presuming to exhaustively “know” the world prior to examining all the options—prior to paying attention to the richness of possibilities that might be life-giving— this also blinded me to other realities. I had relegated Walter to the status of the “other.” Indeed I, like Gloucester, was blind, in despair, isolated and alone, and I had engaged in the hubris of presuming to “know” when in fact I did not. Walter had other ideas. He did not want me to stay isolated, cut-off, shut-down. “Thy life’s a miracle. Speak yet again.” Indeed. Our prayer, dear one’s, must be that we will have the grace to live fully and transparently into the mystery of the new lives we are already living. This is the Paschal Mystery of each moment of our lives.   

Near the end of the play, King Lear derisively asks Gloucester how a blind man can “see how this world goes.” “I see it feelingly,” he replies in his restored humanity and community. I rarely make a pastoral call, or sit with a patient, or teach a class, or advise a student, that I don’t think about Walter. He gently pushed me to do the good, harrowing shadow work that is still unfolding as we speak, right here, with all of you today.  

There is no bad reason to forgive one another, or ourselves. It puts us in touch with God’s reconciling grace. My friends, let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light, so that we might all join with the poet who said:  

When such as I cast out remorse

So great a sweetness flows into the breast

We must laugh and we must sing,

We are blest by everything,

Everything we look upon is blest.[1]

 Amen.  

[1] William Butler Yeats, “Dialogue of Self and Soul,” The Collected Poems of William Butler Yeats, New York: Scribner (1983)

Proper 17A – George Yandell

What’s in a name? From early childhood, I was told ‘George’ means ‘farmer.’ Now no offense to anyone who farms, but I was a city boy, and I didn’t like thinking my name meant ‘farmer.’ The only farms in E TN I’d visited were dirty, the farmers’ lives were tough, there was manure everywhere, and they smelled bad to me. Only later, when I began to study Greek in seminary, did I find my name ‘ge-or’gos’ meant also ‘gardener, vinedresser, husbandman.’ So I began to realize a deeper significance to my name. And now I’ve come to love growing herbs, tending plants, getting dirt on my hands. (And you know preachers are known for how they can spread the manure.) I guess I’ve come full circle.  

In the early history of the Hebrew people, the name for God was ‘El.’ One of the first conversations I had with a man named Elroy, was about his name, which can mean ‘child of God.’ Beth-el in Hebrew means ‘house of God.’ From the time of Abraham, about 2000 BCE forward, the Hebrew people called God ‘El.’ Ancient times. Then around 1250 BCE a most intriguing change happens. The Hebrew people began to call God a new name. How and why?  

The Hebrew people migrated from Canaan to Egypt @ 1650 BCE. You remember the story- Jacob’s 12 sons sold Joseph into slavery. He was carried to Egypt, rose to become Pharaoh’s second-in-command, and then gave sanctuary to all his father’s and brothers’ people. The Hebrews lived in Egypt for 400 years. Over time, they became slaves to Pharaoh.  

Then around 1250 BCE, a child was born to Hebrew slaves. His parents were from the tribe of Levi, the priestly tribe. But Pharaoh had decreed that all male children born to Hebrews were to be killed at birth. We read this story last Sunday. So the baby’s mother hid him, then built a tiny raft and floated him in the Nile River. The daughter of Pharaoh spied the little canoe and the baby, and wanted to take him in.   

The baby’s older sister happened to be there, suggested to Pharaoh’s daughter she could find a wetnurse for the baby, went and got the baby’s mother, and the baby and child were reunited. The mother raised the baby to a teenager, when she presented him back to Pharaoh’s daughter. Pharaoh’s daughter said, “I’ll call him ‘Moses’ (from an Egyptian word ‘Mosheh’ meaning ‘to beget a child’) for I drew him out of the water (from a Hebrew word ‘Mashah’ meaning ‘to draw out.’)” Fascinating, isn’t it? How that name would ring with deeper truth.  

The child Moses went in a moment from being a slave of a down-trodden people to magnificent privilege. He lived in the household of the world’s most powerful man. Then one day, strolling amongst the construction sites, Moses saw an Egyptian policeman beating a Hebrew slave. Moses was filled with outrage. He killed the policeman, and had to make a run for it. He fled to the land of Midian, over 400 miles. Moses identified so strongly with his people’s plight he killed a man, marking him forever as an enemy of Pharaoh.  

One day years later, while tending the sheep of his father-in-law, Jethro, God appeared in a flaming bush near Mount Horeb.  Moses had to see more. (Read Ex. 3:3-8) “I have come down to deliver my people from the Egyptians, to draw them out -Mashah- from Egypt.” “Moses said to God: Which of the gods will I say sent me to deliver Israel?  When they ask me his name, what shall I say?”  

In antiquity, it was believed that selfhood was expressed in the name of a person. If you knew someone’s name, you gained power over him. In this moment the God known only as “El” told Moses God’s personal name- YAHWEH- a verb. This verb form can be translated “I am who I am; I am what I am; I will be who I will be; He causes to be; I am who I choose to be.” What a name! From that moment on, Yahweh has not had a quiet moment. Just as Yahweh chose. Yahweh chose to relate to God’s people personally. God chose Moses to draw out God’s people into freedom. We are descendents of Moses today. Our spiritual ancestors were chosen by the God whose name means ‘being, change, choice.’   

There’s one more name most important in our spiritual history- the name Yahweh bestowed on Yahweh’s son, born of Mary- Jesus. Jesus translates ‘Yahweh saves.’ Jesus is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Joshua, or Yeshua. We sit here today as the tribe whose members, both living and dead, bear the mark of Yeshua’s crucifixion on our foreheads. God has claimed us, we have claimed God in the name of Jesus. Yahweh moved in history to get us to this point. Will we be bold like Moses? Will we work with Yahweh to live into our Christian names? Today in a war-torn world will we work to end ceaseless strife and conflict? Are we ready to draw out those around us to live with us in God’s freedom?  

What’s in a name? Identity, being, mystical relationship, salvation. By acting to draw out Moses, by acting through Jesus, in Jesus, God has made us whole. That’s where our story begins. As we live out our lives, we yearn to know God face to face. To grow into a fuller and fuller relationship with God and God’s son. Yeshua has saved us.  Now we are challenged to carry on what God has begun.

Proper 16 A – George Yandell

As we read the Exodus lesson, it’s important to realize that a lot of time has passed from last Sunday’s reading. In that reading from the end of Genesis, Joseph embraced his brothers who had sold him into slavery in Egypt. Joseph was the last of the line of remarkable patriarchs chronicled in the Genesis pre-history of Israel. Joseph, Pharaoh’s right-hand man, is long gone. The situation of the Hebrews in Egypt has deteriorated. They are being oppressed by ruthless taskmasters. The Pharaoh is anxious because the Hebrew people are reproducing at a fast rate. Male infants are to be eliminated at birth because the Hebrew population is growing so large.   

Rabbi Jonathan Sachs pointed out in a Jerusalem Post article in 2010 that the story of the midwives Puah and Shifra in the Book of Exodus is “the first recorded instance of civil disobedience, [setting a precedent] that would eventually become the basis for the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. Shifra and Puah, by refusing to obey an immoral order, redefined the moral imagination of the world.” History’s proud line of social activists and conscientious objectors can trace their source back to these righteous midwives’ stand against the powers of their day. The Talmud states, “It was the reward of the righteous women of that generation that caused Israel to be redeemed from Egypt.” [This paragraph adapted from “Synthesis: A Weekly Resource for Preaching”, August issue.]  

The intervention by the midwives was key. The birth and hiding of Moses by his mother for three months led to Moses being taken in hand by Pharaoh’s daughter. Her choosing of Moses’ mother to be his wet-nurse set the stage for Moses being adopted into the royal family.  

Pharaoh’s daughter named him Moses, meaning ‘to draw out.’ The rescue of little Moses from the waters anticipates a larger rescue to be wrought by the power of Moses- the delivery of the Hebrew people from slavery. [Adapted from The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. 1, p. 700]  

Names of Bible figures are often tremendously important. They represent more than the wishes of parents at their birth. They etch the child’s mission and fate into their personhood. The politics of naming is important. What you are called and who gets to name you—these things set your place in the world and sometimes set you apart. A name will always say something about who we are, whether it be racially, sexually, denominationally, or otherwise. Christians with mixed denominational influences might call themselves ‘Bapticostal’ or ‘Episco-hindu’.  

The time comes when Jesus chooses to reveal his true identity, his name, to his companions. Jesus knows who he is, but he checks with his disciples to see what they and others are saying about him. “Who do people say that I am?” Many people get his identity wrong; they call him John the Baptist, Elijah or Jeremiah. Not everyone knows who he really is or even his real name. (It was Jesus bar Joseph.) Some people think things about him that aren’t true. But Jesus holds his identity card close. You might say he kept his identity in the closet. [The above three paragraphs adapted and added to in from an article by Luke Powery in “The Christian Century”, August 2 issue.]  

He understands that coming out as the Messiah is a political and religious gesture. He’s no fool. He knows that he’ll lose followers and friends and family over what he calls himself, who he truly is. And it will lead to his execution. Thus he entrusts his precious identity, ‘Son of the living God’, only to a few dear friends.   

People want to be who they are as sons and daughters of the living God. Jesus and our friends are not so much interested in what others call us as who we are together and what we do as lovers of Jesus. [ibid]  

The Rev. Rachel Hosmer was a cofounder of the Order of St. Helena and was one of the earliest women to become an Episcopal priest. She heard my first private confession a week before I was ordained deacon in July 1979. I was on retreat at St. Mary’s Convent at Sewanee. She was most patient with me and offered such caring instruction that she became my first spiritual director. She died 35 years ago. I regret having lost touch with Rachel over the years.   

I learned recently that Rachel had a dream about ordering from the Sears catalogue. Only it was no ordinary catalogue. In it, she could order the Jesus of her choice. There was Jesus as a seminary professor, with pipe and tweed jacket. There was Jesus the farmer, with calluses on his hands and dirt under his fingernails. There was a suburban, churchgoing Jesus in a suit and tie. There was a Latino Jesus, and an African-American Jesus. There was a feminist Jesus, who enabled the bent-over woman to stand up.  

In her dream, Rachel chose one and ordered that Jesus. She received a Jesus, but it was different from the one she had ordered. She requested another Jesus, and again she got an alternate Jesus from the one she had chosen. This happened again and again. Every time she received a variant from the one she had ordered. And every time, it really was Jesus whom she was given.  

The message of her dream finally became clear to her. Jesus would come into her life; but he was always different from her expectations, always wonderfully surprising.  

Scripture describes Jesus as Son of God; Emmanuel; servant; lamb of God; high priest; firstborn of all creation; the bright morning star; the Word—the first, the last, the beginning and the end (Rev. 21:6). In the Gospel of John, Jesus describes himself as the bread of life; the light of the world; the gate; the good shepherd; the resurrection and the life; the vine; the way, the truth, and the life. The list could go on and on, since Jesus embodies all of these—and more.  

Maybe when all is said and done, Paul gave us the best answer to all our questions about who Jesus is and what we are to do: “For in Jesus is found the “Yes” to all God’s promises and therefore it is through him that we answer Amen to give praise to God.” (2 Cor. 1:20, New Jerusalem Bible). [The above paragraphs about Rachel, Jesus and Paul are adapted from “Synthesis: A Weekly Resource for Preaching, August issue.] Can I get an Amen? AMEN. 

Proper 15A – George Yandell

Some of you know that Susan as a Christian is also aligned with Buddhism. She told me a while ago she had rescued a turtle in the middle of Old Burnt Mountain Road. She stopped her car, got out and carried the turtle to the edge of the road it had been aiming for. She infected me with the same urge. A week later I too found a turtle in the road, stopped and carried it over to avoid it getting crushed. This has happened for both of us numerous more times. It got me wondering, “How did the turtles process these events we intended as rescues? Did they think, ‘Whoa, what did that human mean putting me over here? Didn’t it know I had just turned around to go back home because I left the coffee pot on? NOW I have to go all the way back across the road to the side I intended.’”  

Consider how Jesus treated the Canaanite woman who shouted at him for her daughter’s relief from a demon. Did you hear how Jesus ignored her? His disciples urged Jesus to send her away because she was bothering them. Jesus seems to have heeded them, saying, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” But she knelt at Jesus’ feet, gainsaying him with “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” She persuaded Jesus to heed her request. “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” He praised her and instantly her daughter was healed.  

In this encounter I hear a paradigm of how Jesus encountered and engaged folk. His paradigm moves in the tension between Restoration vs. Transformation– restoring relationships vs. transforming those he met, creating new relationships. So often Jesus was regarded as the one who came to restore Israel. Yet the actions he took moved far beyond restoration- he was opening people to a transformed world. He showed his friends that Canaanite women were as worthy as Jewish men to enter that new reality. Yet first, he made them ask for it. Maybe the turtles need a more thorough engagement before we take them in hand! How often did Jesus say to the lame, halt and blind, “Do you want to be healed?”  

For us, healing more often than not comes from unbidden meetings, sometimes from confrontations. Our world views are often exploded by people outside our operational circle. The French philosopher Voltaire (1694–1778) once said, “Prejudice is the reasoning of the stupid.” His wit and provocative writings challenged the thinking and actions of his compatriots.  In these days all over our country, people are so polarized that confrontations too quickly resort to violence. Our nation’s attitudes desperately need mediation and transformation.  

The story is told of Jeremy Cohen, a Texan, who, with his family, became host to a rabbi from Moscow one Christmas. To treat the rabbi to a culinary experience unavailable to him in his own country, Cohen took him to his favorite Chinese restaurant.  

After an enjoyable meal and pleasant conversation, the waiter brought the check and presented each person at the table with a small brass Christmas ornament as a complimentary gift. Everyone laughed when Cohen’s father turned his ornament over and read the label “Made in India.”  

The laughter quickly subsided, however, when everyone saw tear running down the rabbi’s cheeks. Cohen asked the rabbi if he were offended at having been given a gift on a Christian holiday. Smiling, the rabbi shook his head and answered, “No, I was shedding tears of joy to be in such a wonderful country in which a Chinese Buddhist restaurant owner gives a Russian Jew a Christmas gift made by a Hindu in India.”  

C. S. Lewis once wrote an essay entitled “The Inner Ring,” in which he points out that in any playground or office or church there are little groups or circles of people who are on the “inside”— leaving others on the “outside.” Those who fail to enter the inner circle don’t get picked at playtime, they stand on their own in the lunchroom—and are generally left out of the life of the group. Lewis says that the existence of such rings is not necessarily bad. We’re finite beings, and we can only have deeply intimate friendships with a limited number of people.  

But he warns that the desire to gain status or self-worth by being part of an “inner ring” is deeply destructive. It causes one constantly to compare oneself with others, to feel anguish when getting left out—and even deeper despair when someone “less worthy” gets let in. Worst of all, once you’re in, you want to keep others out, because it’s the exclusive nature of the group that makes you feel worthy.  

Perhaps only Jesus could so effectively challenge this very human tendency to the point that miraculous healing results. Nowhere in the Gospels does Jesus refuse people seeking faith. The Canaanite woman believes that an impure “foreigner” may rightfully claim what the Covenant people fail to accept.  

And she is right. “‘Great is thy faith.’ [Jesus] has never said this to any of His disciples who left all for His sake,” writes Helmut Thielicke in The Silence of God (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1962). “To only one other had He said it, and that was again to an unnamed secondary figure, the centurion of Capernaum. What has the Canaanite woman done that Jesus should thus extol her faith? She has simply met Him and stretched out her hand to him,” and repeatedly asks his help. In so doing, she discovers the deepest riches of God’s grace and mercy. [The above 8 paragraphs adapted From “Synthesis, A Weekly Resource for Preaching”, August 2017 issue.]  

I love how the psalm expresses what Jesus practiced centuries after it was written: “Oh, how good and pleasant it is, when kindred live together in unity!” I believe that desire is God’s dream for humanity, and the dream that animated Jesus in all his encounters. It’s what we pray for each Sunday as we kneel and confess our sins to God- “For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us, that we may delight in your will and walk in your ways.” 

Proper 14A – George Yandell

Richard J. Fairchild tells the story of a man who took his new hunting dog on a trial hunt one day. After a while he managed to shoot a duck and it fell in the lake. The dog walked over the water, picked up the duck, and brought it to his master. The man was stunned. He didn’t know what to think.  

He shot another duck, and again, it fell into the lake; and again the dog walked over the water and brought it back to his master. Hardly daring to believe his eyes, and not wanting to be thought a total fool, he told no one about it—but the next day he called his neighbor to come shooting with him.  

As on the previous day, he shot a duck and it fell into the lake. The dog walked over the water and got it. His neighbor didn’t say a word. Several more ducks got shot that day— and each time the dog walked over the water to retrieve them. And each time the neighbor said nothing, and neither did the owner of the dog.  

Finally—unable to contain himself any longer—the owner asked his neighbor: “Do you notice anything strange about my dog?” “Yes,” replied the neighbor, rubbing his chin and thinking a bit. “Come to think of it, I do. Your dog doesn’t know how to swim.”  

Over and over in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus is seen urging his disciples toward increased faith. Jesus praises those he cures with the words, “Your faith has healed you.” He chides the disciples by addressing them as “you of little faith.”  

Jesus and his disciples are on the east side of the Sea of Galilee, the Romanized region of the Decapolis, the 10 cities populated mostly by non-Jews. The feeding of the 5000 has just taken place. Jesus sends his colleagues across the sea to Galilee without him. He then goes up onto a mountain to pray.   

This is the first time in the gospel that Jesus sends forth his disciples without Him. They are battered by the waves far from shore. At its widest point, the Sea of Galilee is about 10 miles across. Windstorms funneled by the mountains often whip up the waves very quickly. About 4:00 in the morning, Jesus comes walking across the sea to the boat. His friends are terrified thinking him to be a ghost. Jesus speaks, “Take heart, it is I. Do not be afraid.” Peter thinks it may not really be Jesus, so he tests Jesus, “Command me to come to you on the water.” But coming near Jesus, Peter gets frightened and begins to sink, the waves raging around them. Jesus reaches out his hand, catches Peter, chastises him for doubting, and they climb into the boat. Immediately the wind ceases blowing. His companions then worship him, exclaiming, “This is it! You are God’s Son for sure!” [Translation from the Message Bible, p. 40]  

I doubt Peter expects a walk on the sea will alleviate all his fears. Rather, his desire to join Jesus on the water expresses a desire for transcendence. He’s not trying to be Jesus, he’s trying to be with him. Peter wants to share Jesus’ unbounded place, to put himself beyond the forces and expectations that determine our usual existence, whether for better or for worse.  

When Peter steps from the boat into the waves, Jesus’ words give this impetuous disciple the courage to believe: “It is I,” Jesus assures him. “Do not be afraid.” But doubts cause the brash and brave disciple to sink.  

Fear of the unknown below, waves of vulnerability, a sense of failure and even sudden death lurk within him. They cut off his faith in the moment. But the water holds up long enough for Peter to be safely caught by his Master—and he finds himself safe as the winds cease.  

It doesn’t even take much imagination to envision such scenarios in our own lives and their potential outcomes. (Adapted from Synthesis, August 2017 issue.)  

Traveling in north Mississippi in June on my way to Memphis, I spied an Assembly of God Church sign with a message that caught my eye- “Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire?”// Give it a second to sink in.   

We are very imperfect vehicles to embody Divine Grace. We’re all driving around on at least one flat tire and with missing or malfunctioning parts. Broken as we are, the impulse is still there: Christ’s desire to make grace and truth grow in us. (Adapted from Mark Brown, SSJE.) We might hear the story as a parable about trusting in God’s care during the storms we sail into.  

As long as we keep our eyes on Jesus, we’re okay. But when we stop and consider our own inadequacies, how much bigger life is than we are, how immense our problems and our aspirations are- when we stop and think how unequal we are to the task of meeting any of them, we panic. We begin to feel that we are all on our own again. I must do this all by myself. I have no help. It’s wrong to ask for help; it’s a sign of weakness. I should be able to do this myself.  

Why? Why do we think we should be able to handle everything by ourselves? Who told you that you should be ashamed of the fact that you lean on many people, and always have — not just in childhood, but now? Why is it a source of shame to us that God is bigger than we are, so that we can only believe if we cut God down to our own size? The point of the story is our need for help. Peter is foolish when he tries to walk on water by himself. That is only one of the many things he can’t do on his own. It’s probably on your list, too. Our lists of things we can’t do on our own are long. But we’re not supposed to be able to do anything on our list alone. [Two paragraphs above adapted from The Almost-Daily eMo from the Geranium Farm Copyright © 2001-2011 Barbara Crafton – all rights reserved]  

Remember the old hymn and note, the personal pronouns are all plural:   

Jesus calls us o’er the tumult of our life’s wild, restless sea; Day by day His sweet voice soundeth, saying, “Christian, follow Me!”  

Jesus calls us! By Thy mercies, Savior, may we hear Thy call, Give our hearts to Thine obedience, Serve and love Thee best of all.

Transfiguration Sunday – George Yandell

It’s fascinating to me- the growing number of home repair shows on TV. Once This Old House stood alone, now every station seems to have home make-over shows, contests between families to re-do each other’s houses, and craftspeople of all types showing the world how tools work. There’s even a DYI network. How many of you like to watch those shows?// Why do we like them so much? For me it’s a simple answer- I, for one, love to watch other people work. I get a vicarious sense of accomplishment in watching others work. I often learn some tricks of the trades from the workers, and marvel at the finesse of skilled craftspeople.  

Jesus liked to watch other people work. He was drawn to watching fishermen ply their craft on the Sea of Galilee. He watched as a widow put her gift into the temple tax collection box. And he was a student of farming practices – he often crafted parables about farming and tending vines. He wasn’t afriad to coach people who weren’t doing their jobs too well, especially the schcolars and temple leaders who fell short of doing God’s justice.

Watching Jesus work must have fascinated his followers. As he toured Galilee and Judea, Jesus taught, healed, cast out demons, preached and shared meals with a motley assortment of Jewish peasants. Some think that Jesus himself was a craftsman, a wood-worker.  

Work as I’m describing it is public activity. Often there are critical distinctions made in the gospels between the public ministry of Jesus and his private relationships with his followers and friends. The same is true today for us. In public relationships, we go for respect. In private, we go for intimacy. There’s a blending of public and private relationships in our gospel today, all around the work of Jesus.  

Some scholars suggest that today’s gospel story, the Transfiguration of Jesus on the mountaintop, was a moment of shared vision and prayer for Peter, John, and James. Luke’s gospel, adding some items not in the gospel of Mark, has Jesus taking his closest colleagues up on a mountain to pray.

Watching people pray is in itself hard work. Not real exciting, because we can’t see much happening, unless the prayer is ecstatic, like Sufi whirling dancers. Is it any wonder that when the gospels report times when Jesus took some close friends off with him to pray, they fall asleep? Pretty boring stuff, especially in the middle of the night, when Jesus seemed most to enjoy praying to his Father in heaven.  

This time they weren’t sleepy- watching Jesus bathed in heavenly light, joined by Elijah and Moses who talked to him- this got their attention like nothing ever had. The wonder worked in front of them made the friends of Jesus quake with fear. Peter started babbling about making tents for each of their faith-heroes – what was Peter thinking? That’s when Mark reports a cloud overshadowed them all and voice boomed out, “This is my favored Son- listen to him!” Every time the cloud of God’s presence appeared in Hebrew scripture, its center held an envelope of brilliant light. That envelope of light was called “the glory.” This cloud always had, literally, a shining silver lining.  

The transfiguring of Jesus is found in Mark, Matthew and Luke, and in two extracanonical Christian writings, the Acts of John and the Apocalypse of Peter. The other-worldliness and terrifying beauty of Jesus wrapped in God’s glory has been the subject of countless works of art through the centuries. Why? What does this event offer us today?  

In a word, Fullness. Jesus joined by Moses and Elijah who stand for the law and the prophets. Their presence suggests Jesus is fulfilling all the law and the prophets. They speak with Jesus at this critical moment in his ministry- for Mark, the work of Jesus moves him from this mountaintop down to Jerusalem and his confrontation with the rulers who execute him. Jesus is full of God’s glory, revealed to the chosen 3 followers. And even though Jesus orders them to silence until after his resurrection, they don’t stay quiet for long – just like the healed leper who couldn’t keep quiet– the secret of their seeing Jesus bathed in God’s glory and hearing God’s endorsement of Jesus was too much to contain.  

Intimacy of such brilliance is a public display of God’s powerful presence. The glory makes full the message of God’s dwelling in Jesus. The disciples couldn’t miss it, and neither can we. Paul got it. “We are being transformed into God’s likeness from one degree of glory to another” was the way he put it (2 Corinthians 3:18). There is within each of us the potential to reflect the envelope of light that shone so brightly around Jesus. The glory of God is within us, within our fellowship. That’s what Jesus meant when he taught his followers: “You are the light of the world. You must shed light among your fellows, so that they will see the good you do, and give glory to God in heaven.” (Matthew 5: 14 –16)  

Do you hear the transaction, the work described here? The light within us is shed among others, so that they in turn will give glory, reflect God’s light by acting as light-bearers right now in our world. It’s a circle, a cycle of light-sharing. It’s amazing isn’t it, that the work of Jesus continued after his death and resurrection in the work of the disciples? This is the work of Jesus- displaying God’s glory, living in the glory in such a way that Christ’s love encompasses us all. If you use mystic vision, you can see all of your fellows here with halos wreathing their heads with light. That’s what halos are- the glory of Chris’s light dancing around our heads like a nimbus. And it is a secret- the more you talk about it, you diminish the glory- it’s listening to God and then doing the work we’ve seen Jesus do. It means living the presence of light that communicates the glory of this life. As Jesus lived full his humanness and did his work of glorifying God, so we are to do as well.   

9th Sunday after Pentecost – Proper 12A – George Yandell

Mustard. How many of you really love mustard? And just to give you a definition, to be a mustard lover means you have at least three types of mustard in your refrigerator or your cupboard/ raise your hand. There is something just so good about mustard-even French’s yellow mustard. It isn’t just an elixir, it’s a remarkable condiment. Jesus’ words about mustard contain the only times the word mustard is used in the Bible. He too could have been a mustard lover. But when Jesus talks today of mustard seeds he is making an allusion, he is not talking of the condiment, but he is imaging humans and the way that the kingdom of God grows in and amongst us, as if we were mustard plants. And he is saying that God’s home is good.

The mustard seed is a tiny seed. A handful of mustard seeds might number in the hundreds. The mustard plant or bush can grow to large proportions. In Jesus’ day the mustard plant was a fairly common annual large shrub. It was also cultivated as it is in our day. Interesting is the comment that it can grow so large that the birds of the air, many different varieties, make homes in its branches, when in actuality it doesn’t grow quite that large- maybe an exaggeration to bring home the point that the kingdom of God is much larger than we can imagine.

For humans, this allusion is about how the Kingdom of God, or I’ll say, the home of God, is planted within us. It can be the tiniest of nudges, it can be the slightest of contacts that causes us, over time, to have the kind of growth that Jesus says is the remarkable legacy of the tiny mustard seed. Like the saying from Jesus about the small amount of leaven concealed in 50 lbs of flour- the home of God grows from small beginnings, then transforms the whole into yeasty fullness.  For us the hallmark of the growth of God’s home within us is different from individual to individual. For one it can be the gradual acceptance of a vocation that one had never dreamed of. I know of a successful businessman who felt a call to the ordained ministry. He forsook his vocation, moved his family to Washington, DC where he finished seminary in three years and now in later life has found his true vocation as a priest. 

You and I often overlook the slight nudges or the tiny seeds implanted within us. It is one of legacies of our day that we are “out there” so much that the subtle, small glimmerings of God’s light are lost on us. I have found e-mailing, texting  to be remarkable and wonderful gifts. I have also been amazed at the amount of time that using those tools takes. The trick is to make the tool work for me and not me work for the tool. I think that is the way with many of those “time-saving” devices that we now employ.

And so it is with the way our lives become cluttered. Johannes Metz in his book Poverty of Spirit talked of those things that keep us from turning to God and living a more spiritual life as attachments. Those things to which we become strongly attached, like the internet or television or eating or compulsive working, almost always divert us from discovering the spirit’s potential within us.

That might be a subtle clue in the parable- those birds in the trees. So many different kinds. It might be very easy for us to overlook the miracle of the mustard seed’s quick growth each year into a large plant because it’s distracting to see all the different varieties of birds that flutter in its branches. And so is the case with many of us. Usually our attention is split in so many ways that we forget that the primary attachment we are to nourish is that small, secret, quietly growing home of God within us.

The birds that flutter in my own mental branches can be distracting as well as beautiful. But the way of the spirit’s growth makes us attentive past the fluttering wings and into to the heart, the core of love that Christ offers us.

In The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky counsels: “Love all creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day.” Jesus must have lived with something of this kind of love for God’s creation. He saw “the divine mystery in things,” to quote Dostoevsky. His close relationship to the ordinary enabled Jesus to speak of the extraordinary Kingdom of God through images of nature and of everyday living. 

It is our vocation as Christians to respect the creation God has made, both around us and within us. To seek the small growth of positive relationships with our peers, the less fortunate, the distressed, and any who can benefit from our companionship. And to allow the growth of a healthy, respectful relationship with one’s self. Any of you who has a garden knows that it requires almost daily attention to flourish. 

So it is with the home of God within and among us. While God plants the seed and gives the growth, to flourish, we must be partners with God in raising up the healthiest, well-tended home for God within us and in our world. It means we need to pay attention. To see the sunrises and pause before them in awe. To love what and who God has given us. To yield to our hearts and take time to talk to our neighbors. To pray quietly each day. To work hard at our tasks and take time for refreshment. And to enjoy what we are given. God has made us to flourish and be joyful companions to God and one another. When we have nourished the home of God within us, then we find that celebration is God’s intent- not just hard work, pain, and seriousness. But joy, wonder, and awe at the mystery of life, the birds fluttering in the branches, and the lushness of growing things.

A close friend of mine died 26 years ago. He was a priest and colleague of mine at Holy Communion Church in Memphis. Above his desk, Murray Lancaster had a needle-pointed saying framed, so that he had to look at it every time he was on the phone or glancing up from his work. It said, in flowing script, “Avoid seriousness.”// Murray did. He experienced life as a gift, and was always attentive to the fluttering of bird’s wings, not as distraction, but as evidence of God’s presence.

Once Murray came in my office, grinning, and said, “I’ve just spoiled a squirrel’s thievery.” I said, “What?” Murray said he had just installed a bird feeder that allowed all his feathered friends to feed, but every time a squirrel got on the feeder, the bar that supported the bird’s light weight, but it closed the feeder door under the squirrel’s heavier weight, and no feed would dispense to the squirrel. Murray said he had sat for hours the day before watching the squirrels be frustrated and the birds take delight in their uninterrupted feeding. Actually, he said, the squirrels got plenty of spilled seed on the ground from what the birds scatter. I think we can take instruction from Murray’s example. I know I did- we’ve had an identical bird feeder in our front yard, and I always delighted in frustrating the squirrels who try to steal into the feeder. We too can delight and flourish in this life as God means us to.

Seventh Sunday after Pentecost – Proper 10 – George Yandell

When I was 15 I couldn’t wait to get my learner’s permit to start driving. My good friend Ned was (and still is) 2 months older than I, so he got his permit in mid-fall. I asked him how it was going, eager to get some tips. He said, “Turning or going around a long curve is hard. I keep making corrections to keep the car in the lane. I end up making little jagged moves of the steering wheel. The curve ends up looking like a circular saw blade – jagged edges instead of a smooth rounded path.” Two months later I could relate to Ned’s experience – I kept nervously making little mistakes and nervously correcting them. It drove my mother crazy. Maybe you can relate?

The story of the two brothers Jacob and Esau is a classic example of how God faces the dilemma of determining who shall carry on Abraham’s line and serve God’s purposes. God intends to develop a model of society for the world. Jacob and Esau share both good and bad traits upon which to try to build leadership for the future. Jacob and Esau are like the ragged edges of the turns – they keep having to be corrected in the paths they’re taking. 

The Genesis story leaves us with the problem of trying to understand the choice between two flawed individuals and what that means for us, the readers and students of the Bible in every generation. Neither portrait is very flattering. It is too easy to move to negative assessments of the men portrayed without fully understanding their complexities as individuals.

None of the players in this story come off well. None appeared to offer better options for the history of salvation. Far from it – and from this dilemma we can take encouragement. These people and their families look, feel, sound and act like us. But God worked mightily through the statistical improbabilities – the practical challenges of infertility, multiple births and deviant behavior. In God’s gracious hands the incidental, the accidental and the ordinary become the material of redemption in history, both in ancient Israel and in our own family stories today.

Remember that the Bible starts from the assumption that all humans are flawed in one way or another by the very nature of things. The story’s purpose is not to demonstrate the flawed character of individuals but to suggest some lessons about the problems of choosing among human weaknesses by focusing on human strengths, to be prudent in our choices yet to maintain our moral vision. [Adapted from Daniel Elazar in “Jacob and Esau and the Emergence of the Jewish People” (Jerusalem Office for Public Affairs: Daniel Elazar On-Line Library)].

Flash forward 1800 years from the patriarchs of Israel to Galilee under Roman occupation. Jesus tells the parable of the Sower, or better, the parable of incredible yield. The seed cast from a Galilean farmer’s hand usually did NOT sprout and yield full growth. Most often seeds failed to find adequate soil or rainfall & survived only briefly. Yet Jesus tells a most startling thing there on the shore of the lake – some of the seed sown in good soil gave absolutely stupendous yields – unheard of growth. Normally a seven-fold yield was a fantastic harvest. But 30, 60 and 100-fold yields—most of those who heard Jesus would have laughed him to scorn – they’d have yelled, “You’re crazy! That never happens!” But others might have asked, “What is Jesus really talking about?” and then they began to consider the story suggests something deeper.

Jesus, the rabbi, told simple stories, yet filled with hyperbole and exaggeration for effect – it was his signature method. Many said of Jesus, “He is speaking a NEW WORD to us.” This story speaks of life unbounded, of life potential undreamed of. In the context of Galilee where farmers had been dispossessed of their land, this could have been an unrealistic dream. And if you and I hear it that way today, that’s the message – life potential undreamed of, impossible to attain.  So what is the new word for us, here? Remember, the parable tells of growth, of potential beyond our wildest imagining. What is the wild, superabundance beyond our wildest dreams?

The parable of the seeds and the Sower tells us the nature of the kingdom of God growing in us and among us. Seeds sown on the path and on rocky ground are eaten by birds or scorched with no depth of soil. Seeds sown on good soil brought unsurpassed yields. Then Jesus creates the analogy of hearing the word of God but not understanding/ of hearing the Word of God, receiving it with joy, but falling away, enduring only a while. The seeds sown among thorns hear the word of God, but the cares of the world and desire for wealth choke the seeds and they yield nothing. The seeds sown in the heart of one who hears, understands the good news of Jesus, bring forth incredible yields.

In the context of God’s intent for God’s people, the choice is not between two flawed parents of Israel or other individual leaders. Jesus instead means for us to choose the good news of God’s coming kingdom- to choose what Jesus intends for us, the readers and students of the gospel in every generation. In the short years of his ministry, stumblebum fisherfolk were transformed. Leadership in the band of Jesus followers meant each one leaned on the others- my weaknesses are compensated by you, we build the fellowship as a spirit-led cooperative, and the kingdom of God yields a fellowship unparalleled across the ages. Near you in the pews is one you need to learn from, to hear her story and in turn resonate with your own. 

Through the presence of Christ, relating to one another, we are all being transformed – transformed into pilgrims who together lend strength and courage to each other, in spite of our seeming inadequacies.

A poem from the early 1800’s:

Almighty God, your word is cast like seed upon the ground, now let the dew of heaven descend and righteous fruits abound.

Let not our selfishness and hate this holy seed remove, but let it root in every heart to bring forth fruits of love. Let not the world’s deceitful cares the rising plant destroy, but let it yield a hundredfold the fruits of peace and joy. [By John Cawood (1775–1852)].

Pentecost 6, Proper 9A – George Yandell

How many of you are frustrated by the drop-outs in cell phone service? Irritated at the scratchy reception at the edge of your transmission area? It seems to be the rule for me that the more technology advances the more frustration increases. The general rule is the greater the distance from the transmission point the poorer the clarity of transmission, the more gaps in our reception.

Jesus gives us a curious teaching about gaps this morning. “I praise you father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and revealed them to infants (or better, untutored ones (or even better, babies still nursing)). Yes, indeed, Father, for this is the way you want it.” Paul reports gaps in his ability to live free from sin. He writes, “I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind.”

I hear Jesus, then Paul, teaching us about gaps with God. It’s all about our mindset. 

Our minds can convince us of our importance even when the facts instruct humility. The ways we assume ourselves to be important (to be wise, to be engaged in doing good, to be quick to see God in our actions and those of others)—those assumptions distance us from the transmission point. We lose God’s clarity and replace it with fuzzy logic. Our receivers filter God’s desire for us to live simply, humbly for God.

Even though biblical scholars now unlock more and more of the context and deeper meanings of Jesus’ teachings, we are more and more selective in accepting God’s wisdom. We have major gaps in our knowledge of God. The result is we become split, like Paul, between the rule of God’s spirit and our own volition, our self-importance.

What is your mindset? How often do you disappoint yourself with your failings? Can you identify with St. Paul in his moaning about falling short: “When I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand?”  The solution is clear- change your mindset. From Paul: “Those who live according to the spirit set their minds on the things of the spirit. To set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.” But how to change is the BIG question, isn’t it?

Listen again to Jesus: “God, you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and revealed them to untutored ones. Yes, indeed, Father, for this is the way you want it.” Why does God choose to reveal God’s truths to the untutored, the babe at the breast?

Why would God set us up? I think it’s so we will learn through our own experience the need we have for God.

Consider the baby nursing at her mother’s breast. What goes on with that baby? She cries out for food.  She’s held close and given all she needs to live. She feels the warm, loving tenderness of her mother. The baby sees everything with wide-eyed wonder. The world is always new.

Sam Keen wrote a remarkable book years ago, Apology for Wonder. Keen says that to wonder is to perceive with reverence and with love. In wondering we come close to the feeling that the earth is holy. A sense of wonder depends on trust. Erik Erickson described basic trust as a necessary component of healthy personality. The earliest mode of trust comes to the child with the mother nursing. 

So does Jesus mean that we all have to become powerless and helpless like babies at the breast in order to perceive God? NO. But he does suggest that disciples need a child-like wonder to allow the sustaining love of God to pour into us.  

Trust is the foundation on which wonder depends. Sam Keen says at every stage of living, the trust developed by mother and child must be reaffirmed. As soon as the child is ready to leave the security of home, she must be willing to affirm that the wider world can be depended on to be responsive and supportive of her needs and actions. She learns to relax and trust herself in previously frightening contexts. 

Where trust is missing, the world becomes frightening and alien. Persons become self-protective and potential enemies to one another. So-called modern wisdom tells us to look out for number one. Jesus offers child-like wonder, sustained by trust in God.

The gaps are just part of being human, needing God. God has planted in us an innate trust in God, but it often gets broken and torn apart. Open yourself to trust God anew. Allow God’s gentle mothering to hold you close. Jesus means for us to be disciples in trust and wonder. And be assured- the company of wonder is led by Jesus himself- “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, because I am meek and modest and your lives will find repose. For my yoke is comfortable and my load is light.”