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Have you ever said to someone, “Man, what a day; I feel like I’ve been running around in circles all day long!”? Have you ever stopped to consider what it means at an existential level to be running around in circles? It means you’re going over and over the same territory all the time, which means you are not being exposed to anything new or different, which means you’re closed off from a good deal of what’s out there to experience in the world, and from a good number of people with whom you might otherwise be relating. What circles do you run in?
Jesus had a little circle of followers; they were all Jews. And they all lived in the Jewish state of Israel. It was kind of a circle within a circle. But Jesus’ way of running in circles wasn’t like our way. We go ’round and ’round, repeating patterns of thought and following the tracks we’ve left before, like the wheels of a car going around a racetrack, each revolution of the wheel is a repeat performance. But that word revolution is a two-edged sword. It comes from the Latin re, meaning back, and volvere, meaning to roll. A revolution is a rolling-back. Have you ever been stuck in the snow? The problem is that your wheels just keep spinning in the same place. In order to get unstuck you need to roll the car back out of that rut to get it in a different place. Jesus was a revolutionary. He turned things around, and did so in ways that sent him and his listeners outside the carefully laid tracks of established thought and well-worn prejudices.
Our scripture reading from Luke this morning picks up where last week’s reading left off. Jesus had just wowed the congregation with a brilliant one sentence sermon that left them all in awe. Then he turned things around on them. He said, “the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah . . . yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” Like a true revolutionary, he was rolling them back out of their circular thinking; telling them that foreigners were regarded above Israelites in those sacred stories. They drove him out of town to throw him off a cliff. Trying to roll back people’s way of thinking and get them out of the ruts formed by the circles they run in is very risky business. It can get you run out of town, or worse.
And so it is with a certain degree of trepidation that I make the following suggestion: the church is not simply a safe, comfortable retreat from the world – a place where you can be supported by your friends, confirmed in your opinions, and comforted in your trials. The church is a place of revolution. It has been from the very beginning. A case in point? Paul’s first letter to the church at Corinth.
You and I are fond of those words from 1 Corinthians 13: “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. . . . Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. . . .” We hear these words at just about every wedding. In fact, I have read them just about every time I’ve done a wedding. They are magnificent. What most of us don’t take time to notice are the words that lead up to these glorious thoughts about love. Paul makes it clear that he is responding to some serious conflict in the Corinthian church. There were various groups within the church (different “circles,” if you will) each claiming a separate leader. They were proud, each one thinking they were the smart ones who knew what was right and what was wrong. They were divided about sexual relationships, marriage, taking one another to court for perceived offenses, observance of ritual purity laws, fairness in food distribution. It seems they couldn’t find enough things to fight about. These were the kind of ruts they were running around and around in. And it is into this mess that the Apostle Paul sends this missive about love being kind, not jealous or boastful, arrogant or rude. Paul is being a revolutionary. He’s trying to shake them up, roll them back out of their tracks.
The church was founded on the words and ministry of a revolutionary figure, and founded as a place of revolution. This is a place where normal patterns of behavior, standard operating procedures, accepted social consequences, and natural human instincts are rolled back, and every action, every conversation, every point of view, every decision is subjected to a higher standard, a standard that “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things,” and “never ends.”
Phillip Yancey tells the story of a revolutionary. He was a French friar named Abbé Pierre. “Born into a noble family,” Yancey writes, “[Pierre] had served in the French Parliament until he became disillusioned with the slow pace of political change. After World War II, with Paris still reeling from the effects of the Nazi occupation, thousands of homeless beggars lived in the streets. Pierre could not tolerate the endless debates by noblemen and politicians while so many street people starved outside.
“During an unusually harsh winter, many Parisian beggars froze to death. In desperation, Pierre resigned his post and became a Catholic friar to work among them. Failing to interest politicians or the community in the beggars’ plight, he concluded his only recourse was to organize the beggars themselves. He taught them to do menial tasks better. Instead of sporadically collecting bottles and rags, they divided into teams to scour the city. Next, he led them to build a warehouse from discarded bricks and then start a business in which they sorted and processed vast quantities of used bottles from hotels and businesses.
“Finally, Pierre inspired each beggar by giving him responsibility to help another beggar poorer than himself. The project caught fire, and in a few years an organization called Emmaus was founded to expand Pierre’s work in other countries.”1
Abbé Pierre came to realize that trying to do things the way they’ve always been done leads inevitably to getting the same results. He had to roll back the thinking of his time and organize the beggars. He had to become a revolutionary. That’s the model for the church. Pot-luck suppers and rituals of worship are comforting, but they are not our “meat and potatoes.” We are revolutionaries, or we are nothing. That’s a scary thought. It means we are constantly being pushed and pulled out of our ruts, out of the circles we run in. It means we’re likely to find ourselves a bit lost at times, in unfamiliar territory. I think that’s where we’re supposed to be.
The author, educator, and commentator, Steve Zeitlin points out how the revolutionary kind of circles can lead us to where we need to be and how terribly important it is to get a little lost in the process. He writes: “Stories move in circles, they don’t move in straight lines. So it helps if you listen in circles because there are stories inside stories and stories between stories, and finding your way through them is as easy and as hard as finding your way home. And part of the finding is the getting lost, because when you’re lost, you have to look around and listen.”2
That’s it! That’s the value of getting whacked up side the head like the congregation in the temple did when Jesus told them they weren’t as special as they thought they were, or like the Corinthians did when Paul wrote to point out the ruts they were stuck in. It can leave us a little disoriented. And a little disoriented is maybe where we need to be in church, because then you’re forced to look up from the track in the road and pay attention; you’re forced to stop and consider what truly matters and what truly does not.
So here’s my revolutionary whack up side the head for this morning (and I hope it doesn’t get me run out of town or thrown off a cliff). Listening to Nowell and Mike at the annual meeting last week, I realized that they are considering and putting out for your consideration some different notions about our way ahead as a church. So I’m throwing my hat into the ring and suggesting the following: What if we totally rethought our structure as a congregation? What if we tried not having a traditional pastor, but instead strengthened what has already been developing here, which is for all the members of the church to be pastors to one another? What if we occasionally had members of the congregation lead our worship or offer a message from their own hearts and experience? Listening to Mike and Nowell last week at the annual meeting inspired me to think about what marvelous thoughts and words of inspiration could come from any of us. Could it be that our budget issues might lead us out of a rut and into a revolution? And, speaking of revolution — that going back to get unstuck thing — this is actually an old model. It’s how the early church formed, and it’s how many churches were organized in the early days of our nation. It’s how the Mormons and many “house churches” function today.
This morning we’re going to come to this communion table as individuals, and as a body — the body of Christ. There are no privileged places in this act of communion; everyone is a priest, everyone is a servant. What we reenact in this ritual is part of a story that’s very symbolic and even a little confusing that, if you’re lucky leaves you a little lost and therefore wakes you up.
Well, that’s my revolutionary thought for this morning. As I said, I hope it doesn’t get me run out of town. What I hope it does is start a conversation. And who knows where that conversation might lead us? Maybe we’ll lead each other to a place none of us have ever considered going. But it is my firm belief that we will be guided on our journey by love, a love that “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things,” and never ends.
1 Phillip Yancey, Searching for the Invisible God, Zondervan Publishing, 2000, pp. 239–240.
2 Because God Loves Stories: An Anthology of Jewish Storytelling, Steve Zeitlin, ed., Touchstone, 1997, p. 85.
I’m sure everyone is familiar with the old spiritual, “Dry Bones.” Well, anyone who has spent much time typing at a computer keyboard, or clicking a computer mouse button, knows the timeless truth that “the wrist-bone (as the old spiritual says) is connected to the arm-bone.” Sometimes, in fact, I can spend so much time typing and “mousing” that my wrist bone begins to complain about the connection.
But a wondrous connection it is. Because of the connection between our arm-bones, and wrist-bones, and hand-bones, and finger-bones, humanity is capable of giving birth to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Tolstoi’s “War and Peace,” open heart surgery, robots taking soil samples on Mars, and who knows how much more?
Our body parts are magnificently woven together so that the whole is far greater the sum of the parts. When the finger-bone is, through the chain of joints and tendons and nerve synapses, connected to the head-bone, the result is greater than this (the wagging of a finger) — it is this (the beautiful sanctuary in which we worship).
What is true for our individual bodies is true also for the “Body of Christ.” That’s a term we use to refer to the Church of Christ in the world. The Body of Christ is us — it is people, connected by the ligaments and tendons of our common bond in Christ. The power of this body is a source of abundant hope in our world.
In the ties that bind us together as childtren of the Most High, there is a hope which lies beyond the rational assessment of optimum results and managed outcomes — a hope which confounds the purveyors of pessimistic probabilities. I tell you that wonders beyond your imagining can come of the power of unity in love.
This is my message today.
No power on earth is greater than that of the people of faith united. Even the seemingly impossible becomes possible when you and I are knitted together by the holy and inexplicable Spirit of the Lord.
That’s what we mean when we speak of being a member around here. It means being a member of the body of Christ in the same way that your arm is one of your bodily members.
The Apostle Paul puts it this way: “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body — Jews or Greeks, slaves or free — and all were made to drink of one Spirit.”
These words were written to a church that was being robbed of its power. The church at Corinth was weakened by the bickering of rival factions. Some folks were lining up behind Paul, some were siding with Apollos, some were with Cephas. It all sounds quite familiar to our twentieth century ears. There’s still a cancerous tendency on the part of otherwise intelligent, clear-thinking people to set up camp on opposite sides of an issue and take target practice at each other.
We also don’t find ourselves surprised at the echoes of avoidance and withdrawal in Corinth that we hear from Paul’s letter. We’re not surprised at it because we encounter it, and perpetuate it ourselves. It’s the tendency, if things aren’t going the way you like, and you don’t feel like fighting, to simply flee — run away, or drop out.
I’ve done it; I suspect some of you have too: “If he’s going to act like that, then to heck with him!” – or “I’ll show them, I just won’t go to their meetings.” – or the thousand other ways we have of opting out.
How about this one: “Who me? I’m too old to get involved. Let some of the younger ones do that now” – as though the foot could say, “since I’m not a hand, I’m not part of the body.”
Here’s another oldie but goodie: “I’m not so much a part of things around here; I just don’t have the kind of real faith that some of these other folks have” – as though the ear could say, “If I’m not an eye then I’m not part of the body.”
I bet you’ve never heard this one: “Oh, I don’t know if I’ll go to church today; nobody there would miss me anyway” – as though the eye could say to the hand, “I have no need of you.”
The Deacons or the Mission Committee cannot say to the Trustees, “I have no need of you.” A new member cannot say, “because I’m not a long-time member, I’m not part of the body.”
Such disembodiment takes the very life and power out of the church. And it steals that same life and power from each one of us, because we are fed by one another’s dreams, sustained by each other’s smiles, and upheld by prayers as well as hugs.
Some insight might be sought from some of our long time members — those who have endured the hard knocks, cried at the funerals, danced at the weddings, and generally been knocking around this place for 20 or 30 or 50 years. There is much they could tell us about the body, and what it is to be a part of it for a number of seasons. I could not presume to know all they could say, so I encourage any of you who are newer to the church to ask them. Hear some 30 or 40 year old stories about some former pastor, or some church project, or some tragedy or triumph and listen to what is not spoken. Listen to the patience, and the love and the quiet power of that testimony.
I would be so bold as to offer at least an observation or two about what we might hear from some of that accumulated wisdom on the subject of member-ship.
One of the things I suspect we would hear is: don’t get all distressed or worked up about whether we get a pastor, or if that person is going to meet all your expectations. Pastors come and go. Folks who have been around here a long time have seen plenty. The church is a much bigger thing than whatever pastoral leadership we may have at any given time. That’s a message most ministers fresh out of seminary are not delighted to hear. I have been around the block enough times to not only have heard it, but to know it and to trust the wisdom in it. The church is a gathered body of believers, and its elegance, creativity, power, faithfulness, humility (all the things that make for greatness) derive not from the brilliance of the clergy, but from those people who, over the course of the years, pour their very souls into its sustenance. That’s you.
I think you’d also hear from some of these long-tenured folks how much they have depended on one another over the years. Spending time together, people tend to learn a lot about each other’s gifts, and come to depend on the strengths of others. There is nothing quite so overwhelming as the first time you land in a hospital, and receive cards, and phone calls, and visits, and you learn how many people are praying for you. There’s nothing quite so empowering as to know that, when the chips are down, there is someone you can call who will take you to a doctor’s appointment, or watch the grand-kids, or lead the meeting you have to miss, or any of a dozen other things.
Gary Inrig, tells the story of two students who graduated from the Chicago-Kent College of Law several years ago. “The highest ranking student in the class was a blind man named Overton and, when he received his honor, he insisted that half the credit should go to his friend, Kaspryzak. They had met one another in school when the armless Mr. Kaspryzak had guided the blind Mr. Overton down a flight of stairs. This acquaintance ripened into friendship and a beautiful example of interdependence. The blind man carried the books which the armless man read aloud in their common study . . . After their graduation, they planned to practice law together.”
Like those two, we need each other. You may at times be blind to the critical realities staring you in the face, but someone near you can show you the way; you may at times be unable to grasp something of key importance, but someone with a firmer grasp of reality can give you a hand. Some of us are prophets, some are leaders, some apostles, some of us are pains in the butt. But every one of us is a treasure.
Another thing I suspect we would hear from those who’ve been “knocking around this place” for long years is: don’t sweat the small stuff. For someone who’s been a member for 30 years or more, “small stuff” is not being able to meet the annual budget, planning programs that completely fail, a nostril flaring, name-calling fight over which committee has control of the downstairs closet, or what kind of hymnal we’re going to choose. For someone who’s been a member for 30 years or more, “small stuff” is all those things most folks spend sleepless nights worrying about. Truth is, even the big stuff, the church survives.
To be a member of the body that has endured for 2,000 years is to ride out storms. It is to be eager to forgive, and patient in the face of incompetence or insensitivity. It is to be gentle with our foes, and just as gentle with ourselves.
And then there are things that the “old timers” can learn from those who haven’t been around so long. Creative ideas, fresh energy, new ways of looking at old problems. These are just a few of the many gifts that new people bring along with them. Those ideas, that energy, those visions, deserve respect, and add critical strength to the body.
To those newer folks among us I offer a word of encouragement. Bring your ideas, bring your passions, bring your dreams; you are terribly important to the church of Jesus Christ. And I offer you this hope: If you persevere, if you succeed in achieving a record of long service as a member of one of Christ’s churches, you will have earned the right to quietly move over and make room for someone new in your pew — a pew you may have sat in for decades. You will have earned the right to pour your soul into another struggle through another mind-bending, heart-wrenching social issue, when maybe you have already struggled through prohibition, and war, and integration, and Viet Nam, and “ban the bomb.” You will have earned the right to valiantly do your best to sing some new-fangled hymn that some new-fangled preacher has decided to foist upon you, when you’ve sung thirteen dozen new-fangled ones already.
And at the end of the day, you will have earned the right to sit back in your chair with a soft tear rolling out of the corner of your eye, recalling how lives have been changed in all those years, not least of them your own, and you will thank the Lord for the power and grace of being a part of the body.
All of us are “body parts”, and O how that makes us important. Because the body of which we are a part is the very hope of the world.
You’ve probably all heard about the schoolboy who was doing his homework, writing a report about his own life history. At a loss for an appropriate introduction, he sought out his mother who was in the kitchen preparing supper. Without warning, he asked, “Mom, how was I born?”
His mother, of course, knew that this question about human reproduction was inevitable, but she wasn’t about to deal with it while she was cooking dinner. So she put him off with the old saw, “The stork brought you, dear.”
The boy nodded and moved to the living room where his grandmother was knitting. Again without warning, he asked, “Grandma, how was my mother born?”
This dear lady knew the subject had to be dealt with by the boy’s parents, so wasn’t about to touch that one. “the stork brought your mother,” she explained.
“Grandma,” the boy persisted, “how were you born?”
“The stork brought me, too,” she responded.
He thanked her, returned to his desk, and began his report with these words, “There hasn’t been a normal childbirth in our family for three generations.”
The question about where we come from was addressed repeatedly in the Hebrew scriptures. In Genesis we are told that God created human beings from the dust of the earth. That leitmotif is taken up in one psalm after another, nowhere more magnificently than in the passage we heard this morning from the 139th psalm. The composer of this magnificent work has left us with an enduring treasure, and at the climactic moment of his verbal symphony, he speaks to the Lord and offers this gem: “it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”
I think the reason the ancients spoke so much about who created us is that they were awed by the profound wonder of being human. The only way to give adequate honor to all that it means to be human is to acknowledge divine origins. And we are, indeed, “fearfully and wonderfully made.” St. Augustine remarked that, “People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering.”1 And I think it was Bob Hope who pointed out that in a period of twenty four hours – just one day – the heart beats 103,689 times, blood travels 168,000,000 miles through the body, we eat 3 1/2 pounds of food, drink 2.9 quarts of liquid, breathe over 23,000 times, and inhale 438 cubic feet of air. He then concluded by saying, “Boy, I’m tired.”
But all of that is by no means the most fearful or the most wondrous of things about being human. The things that stir my heart and send my mind whirling are things like the story of a young man we’ll call Hasan (he didn’t give his real name for security reasons). He’s an engineer, and he was protesting for freedom in the streets of Damascus for the months. He said, “I started protesting against my government on March 15 and I have demonstrated in Damascus and its suburbs many times since then. But I learned the lessons about tear gas on the first day of Ramadan when I joined one of three protests in the Midan, the heart of the city’s protest movement. There were about 7,000 protesters on the streets . . . I was walking near the front of the crowd when I heard the sounds of Shahiba who had come up behind us and were attacking the rear of the crowd with batons and tear gas guns. . . . Three tear gas grenades fell right in front of me. Some protestors picked up a couple of the canisters and threw them back at the Shabiha. A friend near me tried, but it burned his hand and he dropped it. For about 20 seconds I couldn’t breathe and the smoke surrounded me. I felt like someone set me on fire. I felt like there was fire on every inch of my skin. I was sweating and felt a very bad taste in my tongue and throat.
I ran blindly to an alley and tried to get some fresh air into my lungs. I was lucky that my friends and I had searched in the Internet and we knew not to rub our eyes. One protester tossed me a can of soft drink to wash my face. I poured it all over my head. I couldn’t tell whether it was Coca-Cola or Pepsi but it helped me to recover . . .”2
Please note that before Hasan went out on the streets to protest, knowing what had been going on, he and his friends researched what to do when you are overcome by teargas. Here’s what’s fearfully wondrous about being human: that a young man like this and thousands of others like him can hold within their hearts the precious idea of freedom, and that they can see people, gassed, arrested and carried off to be tortured, gunned down in the streets, and keep coming out to demonstrate day after day, for months on end.
Here’s what’s fearfully wondrous about being human: that a young, black pastor, filled with dread, can go to Memphis where he knows there are people determined to kill him. And that young man can stand up in a church sanctuary and say, “Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the promised land! And so I’m happy tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man! Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!” That such words, that such power, that such courage and leadership could emerge from the soul of one human being is so wonderful it’s almost frightening.
Let me share with you what that same young preacher wrote in a sermon fifty years ago about what it means to be human. He was talking about the man Jesus spoke of who decided to build new and larger barns to store up all of his crops, so that he could “eat, drink, and be merry.” Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Jesus did not call this man a fool merely because he possessed wealth. Jesus never made a sweeping indictment against wealth. Rather, he condemned the misuse of wealth. Money, like any other force such as electricity, is amoral and can be used either for good or for evil . . . . The rich man was a fool because he permitted the ends for which he lived to become confused with the means by which he lived. The economic structure of his life absorbed his destiny. Each of us lives in two realms, the internal and the external. The internal is that realm of spiritual ends expressed in art, literature, morals, and religion. The external is that complex of devices, techniques, mechanisms, and instrumentalities by means of which we live. These include the house we live in, the car we drive, the clothes we wear, the economic resources we acquire – the material stuff we must have to exist. There is always a danger that we will permit the means by which we live to replace the ends for which we live, the internal to become lost in the external. The rich man was a fool because he failed to keep a line of distinction between means and ends, between structure and destiny.”3
Dr. King was keenly aware of something about the amazing artistry of being human, something that many of us pass over while we’re storing up our grains in bigger barns. It’s a truth that I thought of while watching the birds. Dadgie and I have been fascinated by the birds that flock to the bird feeder outside the window from our dining room. In these winter months, it’s remarkable how many of them come, and how much they will eat. They’re delightful creatures. Their instincts keep them working constantly through these frigid days just to survive. Here’s what’s fearfully wondrous about being human: that we do more, exponentially more, than survive, that we have the capacity to live for greater ends, that we have inner lives that speak to us of our destinies, that we make art, create literature, espouse morality, and can plumb the depths of the soul to make contact with divinity, the beating heart of creation itself.
Perhaps the greatest tragedy of our time is told by what we do to the fearful wonder of being human. To advertisers as well as political campaigns we are nothing more than “targets.” To the IRS and the Social Security Administration we are just numbers. In military campaigns human beings are “troops,” or “hostiles,” or “collateral damage.” Maybe that’s one reason it becomes easier for soldiers to urinate on enemy corpses. I remember having to fight for my personhood one time in the hospital. I know nurses and hospital staff are overworked, and I know their jobs can be head spinning, to say the least. But one afternoon, while lying in my hospital bed following a heart attack, someone came into the room to draw blood. He never looked up from his clipboard, but simply muttered, “Are you 315a?” I said, ‘No, last time I checked I was Mike Scott.”
One of the greatest tragedies in all of this is how we allow ourselves to be accomplices in the cheapening of humanity. You and I fall into the trap of treating others, as well as ourselves, as nothing more than functionaries. In this culture we are defined by what we do. If someone asks about you, what’s your answer? You might say, “I’m a stock broker,” or “I teach school,” or “I’m a housewife,” or “I’m retired,” which says next to nothing about you. All the good stuff, all the stuff that matters about you is what Dr. King spoke about: the inner life of spirit, and the artistry of living, and intonations of destiny. When a human being is reduced to a description of their function in society, then once that function is no longer being performed, they can become like a machine on which someone has pulled the plug. They just lose power, wind down, and go out of commission. What an incredible waste! What a thing to do to this fearfully wondrous creation of divine inspiration!
Here’s my advice this morning. Do not permit “the means by which you live to replace the ends for which you live.” When you see remarkable examples of courage and moral strength (whether it’s in the news reports from Syria or in your next door neighbor, celebrate the wonder of human capacities. Take time each day to acknowledge the artistry of your own soul and the inestimable value of your being, and to acknowledge the one who formed your inward parts, who knit you together in your mother’s womb. For you are fearfully and wonderfully made.
1 Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, Book 10.
2 http://middleeastvoices.com/2012/01/syria-witness-stories-of-allegiance-protest-and-survival/
3 Martin Luther King, Jr. Strength to Love, Harper & Row, 1963.
I have to confess to being stumped this week when I began to consider today’s sermon. I looked at all the scripture texts in the lectionary for this Sunday, and none of them seemed like they would “preach.” Particularly this Psalm: “The voice of the LORD is over the waters; the God of glory thunders . . .The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars . . .The voice of the LORD flashes forth flames of fire. The voice of the LORD shakes the wilderness . . .” Upon first reading, I thought, “well, that’s a lovely image, but it just doesn’t resonate with our human experience.”
I have a feeling you might agree. Most of us would probably say that we don’t hear the voice of the Lord “thundering,” and “breaking the cedars,” and “flashing like fire.” Most of our days pretty much consist of routine pleasures, persistent worries, and regularly scheduled crises, and are pretty devoid of thundering and fire-flashing and cedar-breaking, let alone hearing the voice of the Lord.
So, I thought, how in the world do I make a sermon out of a text like this? Then I chucked a little at myself, “What was I thinking? Of course the voice of the Lord thunders.”
Sometimes the voice of the Lord rocks our lives so powerfully that it seems fire is flashing through our lives, and cedars are toppling around us. Remember the words? “. . . one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.” And if the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. – words that inspired a nation and roused a generation to rise up and live the dream of freedom and justice – were not the voice of the Lord speaking to our age, I don’t know what they were. Those words crashed like thunder across our land, and shook the forests of apathy until the timbers cracked. Oh, the voice of the Lord thunders!
That voice is so powerful it can take a mere idea, and with a flash of fire, mold it into a mighty social force we call the Church, spanning the globe and breaking the barriers of language, class, and culture. After all, what is it that calls us into being, calls us together, and holds us in communion but the word of the Lord? That word is a voice, and it shakes the foundations of our lives. You hear that word in sermons, but it’s not my words that matter. It’s the word in which our words are grounded — the word of ancient and timeless scripture that is amplified until it thunders in our ears. And more than that, it’s the mysterious word of the Spirit that flashes through our worship like fire.
I never know how that Spirit will be manifest here. I’m often amazed at how befuddling this task of preaching is. I might spend twenty hours preparing a sermon that I believe is one of the best things I’ve done. I’m proud and eager to bring this gem to you that I’ve polished, and it leaves everyone cold. On the other hand, I have prepared sermons that I simply never quite got a handle on, and had to walk into the pulpit embarrassed that I was bringing such a dog before these good people, only to have folks leave the sanctuary with tears in their eyes, proclaiming that it was the best sermon yet. And often times, the very point of the message is lost on the listeners, who nonetheless pick up on some minor element, or a word in passing that resonates with a deep crisis or need in their lives, and they go away fulfilled — by nothing I ever intended, or even noticed that I said. And it happens in the music from our wonderful Michelle and Pat. People can be absolutely swept up by the Spirit of the Lord through the music here. It can happen in the stillness of silent prayer; sometimes, if we bring our heart’s concerns earnestly to that moment, the quietness can roar like thunder. When we come together, centered on the word, that thunderous voice speaks to us.
You see, it’s not a matter of how good a sermon writer, or preacher any of us is, it’s not even how beautiful the msic is (although it is), it’s not how dramatically or eloquently someone reads the scripture lesson, it’s the truth of the Lord’s voice thundering through our worship, in spite of the meager words offered that can lift us up to the throne of grace.
And the voice of the Lord “shakes the wilderness” of our daily routines in ways that we seldom even notice. As I said last week, we hear the word ‘epiphany’ used quite a bit these days. This past Monday was the day in the church year we call Epiphany. As I said, it refers to Christ’s manifestation to the world, symbolized by the visit of the magi, being the first gentiles to see him. But now, the word is used to refer to just about any new insight or awareness that someone has. Maybe that’s appropriate, because a sudden disclosure of essential meaning or an intuitive grasp of reality through some simple, striking event, can most assuredly be the voice that “causes the oaks to whirl, and strips the forest bare.”
Although I didn’t see the movie, I’m told the film Jerry Maguire had just such a moment. As the lead character, played by Tom Cruise, sits at his computer late at night, the computer screen begins to glow with a mysterious aura. McGuire has an epiphany, and he pounds out on his keyboard a whole new “mission statement” for his sports management company. With this new mission, the company will be less focused on maximizing profits, and more on developing strong relationships with clients. Everyone loves the statement, except, of course, his boss, who fires him.
But we all know, it is from such ideas that great things can come. Each of us has had moments when truth has broken into our world without invitation or warning, and started turning everything upside down. Don’t kid yourself; the voice of the Lord thunders.
Today’s Psalm offers two very important lessons about that voice. First of all, it’s not a vague, general voice, spoken equivocally to an indeterminate audience. It’s a voice with rifle precision. It doesn’t just make trees break and bend. No, it breaks the cedars — and not just the cedars, but the cedars of Lebanon. It’s a voice with aim. It doesn’t just rattle trees; it shakes the wilderness of Kadesh. So, don’t come to church looking for broad references that will fall down on everyone’s ears like the rain, and leave them to go home dripping with platitudes. If you’re going to come sit in these pews, you’d better strap yourself in, because somewhere in the scripture, or the sermon, or the anthem, or a prayer, the voice of the Lord is going to engage you about something very near and dear to your heart, something very specific in your own life or world. And it can hit you with a power that makes the oak trees whirl!
The other thing we can glean from this Psalm about this voice is that, when the word comes to us, we can recognize it by the content. The clue is in the last verse of the Psalm: “May the LORD give strength to his people! May the LORD bless his people with peace!” That’s a fitting conclusion, because when the voice of the Lord rattles your cedars, you can figure it’s going to be about one of two subjects: strength or peace.
The divine word will either find a way to strengthen you (even if it means refining your gold in the fire of adversity), or that word will endeavor to give you peace. And if you’re really paying attention, there’s usually a share of both adversity and peace to be found in its message. I truly believe that it is the purpose of worship to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. But more than that, I believe it’s the way life works; it’s the yin and yang of creation. The world is filled with powerful messages that will salve your wounds when you are broken, and knock you off your pins when you are full of yourself. Those messages are echoing around you all the time with a voice that cracks the trees. All that’s required is for you to stop and pay attention.
So if someone wonders why nobody hears God’s voice anymore like they did in the Bible, you say to them, “Are you kidding? The voice of the Lord thunders!”
How many times in recent memory have you heard someone say, “I had an epiphany the other day!”? The word in our culture has become synonymous with a bright idea, or a new thought. Etymologically, it’s actually come almost full circle from its origins. The original word was Greek, epiphaneia, meaning a disclosure or revelation. In the New Testament epiphaneia was used frequently to refer to a spectacular appearance of or intervention by God. As the doctrines and rites of the early church crystalized into orthodox traditions, the word was used almost exclusively to refer to the first manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles – those magi from the East (or “three kings” of the famous carol), and hence, the annual celebration of that story. In time, we returned to using the word epiphany more broadly to refer to any manifestation of God, and finally, we are now back to something close to the original Greek meaning: it’s just something that’s revealed or appears to us.
I think this little etymological excursion is very “revealing” (if you will). It’s a wonderful illustration of the interplay between the sacred and the secular. The early church picks up a common Greek word and makes it into holy language, then the culture re-embraces the word and re-secularizes it. That’s a lot of what the story of Epiphany that we celebrate today is all about.
In this season, the retelling of the story of the wise men warms our hearts and reminds us of Christmases long ago, of moments in the spotlight wearing a raggedy bathrobe and a crape paper crown, or standing outside someone’s door with scarves thrown around our necks against a chilly wind singing “We Three Kings.” The fact that the origins of the story are obscure, and that, nonetheless, the visitors mentioned in the account were certainly not kings, and there weren’t necessarily three of them doesn’t diminish the joy of its telling. It’s a wondrous tale, and it was, I believe, meant to be just that.
It was, among other things, a declaration of the majesty of this singular moment in history, a moment of such profound meaning and transcendent power that even the stars were moved in their courses to mark it. But it was more than that. These wise men bring something besides precious gifts; they offer to Jesus and to us a radical vision of the world as it could be – a vision so daring and so sweeping that its implications are still not fully grasped by us.
“. . .wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, ‘Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising.’” If we take a moment to figure out just who these guys were, and what part they played in this story, we just might catch a glimpse of the Divine vision, and discover the astounding message buried within the message of the manger.
“Wise men” as we read it in our Bibles is an English translation of the Greek word μἀγοι, or magi. The magi were originally a priestly class of Medes, but the term came to be used of astrologers in general. The center of astrology, since the third century, B.C. had been in Mesopotamia. So, when Matthew refers to Magi from the East, he is no doubt speaking of Babylonian Astrologers. Now, it’s important to note that such astrologers were regarded in New Testament times by many devout Jews and Christians as evil. They were foreign practitioners of a strange brand of semi-religious sooth-saying that stood in total contradiction of their conception of God – the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob – the God of John and of Jesus.
Astrology was a very ancient practice. These Babylonian mystics conceived of the ecliptic (the apparent orbital circle of the Sun) as being divided into 12 equal parts, or zodiacal signs. As these signs rose successively in the eastern sky, they foretold the fate of those who were born beneath them. These ancient astrologers cataloged a list of omens that were indicators of divine will, and predicted when evil would befall individuals. For many astrologers, there was an element of polytheism in their practice. The sun and moon and planets were regarded as gods.
So, when Matthew casually recites in the opening verse of the second chapter of his gospel that Magi from the East came to Jerusalem, having seen a significant star in the sky, we need to try to hear that phrase with more ancient ears. We need to hear it with the ears of those first century Christians to whom it was addressed. To do that, maybe we should translate it into words that might hit our 21st century ears in the same way. For instance: “In the time of President Biden, after Jesus was born in Philadelphia, Shi‘ite Muslims from Western Afghanistan came to Washington, asking, ‘Where is the child who has been born your king? For we learned about him while participating in a righteous Jihad.’” The parallel is imprecise, but the shock value may be close.
These Magi from Babylon were not part of the club! They not only weren’t believers in the “one true God,” they were foreigners from the land of an ancient rivalry who couldn’t have a clue about what the Lord was doing in bringing a Messiah into the world. But this is how Matthew chooses to begin the story of the birth of Jesus. In Matthew’s telling, except for Joseph, these Babylonian astrologers were the first people on the planet to receive a sign from on High that Jesus, the Messiah, was born in Bethlehem. They were the first! Not the temple priests. Not devout Jews looking for the coming of the Holy One. Not by a dream with a vision of angels and stairs to heaven. Not by a voice speaking from the clouds or a burning bush. No, it was these Babylonian morons who actually believed in astrology – that destiny could be interpreted from the stars and planets. And they received the message by seeing the star of Jesus rise in their zodiacal system! Can you even begin to imagine how that choice for the very beginning of the story of the birth of Jesus blew the minds of those first Christians?
Let’s be honest about it, most of the time we think Jesus is part of our club. Rationally, we know that every culture on the planet has their own depiction of Christ with different pigments and facial characteristics, but deep down, we think all those Chinese and African and Hispanic pictures of Jesus are a little silly, don’t we? Jesus looked like us, right? (Not really). And if Jesus were born today, our big question would be: who would he have supported for President? Well, here’s a concept – what if Jesus weren’t a Democrat or a Republican or an independent, what if he were born in Ethiopia? Now, wouldn’t that mess up your mind?
Here’s the power and breadth of Matthew’s vision: the Lord of this Universe transcends just about everything we hold sacred. That Lord is bigger than any boundaries we establish, breaks down every wall we put up between human beings. If the Lord chooses to communicate something of ultimate importance to those we would brand as heathens, so be it, or chooses to infuse an astrological sign with profound meaning, well, just put that in your pipe and smoke it. If the Lord of All decides to knock us off our pins by going against everything we hold dear, get used to it.
One of my favorite all time movies is Fiddler On the Roof. You may recall that Tevye, the milkman, explains that in turn of the century Anatevka they keep their balance through “Tradition!” Throughout the film, Tevye carries on a conversation with God, whom he regards as in control of everything and always there to hear his every question and complaint. He talks to God even as his world starts to fall apart. The traditions that have held everything together for generations are crumbling around him. One by one, his daughters take up with men and violate the sacred rules and parameters of marriage. First, his daughter, Tzeitel, gives a pledge of marriage to a man without having her marriage arranged by the matchmaker! Then, Hodel falls in love with a man, and together they come to Tevye seeking not his permission to marry, but only his blessing! All this is head-spinning for poor Tevye, who in each case talks to the Lord and to himself, trying to get his mind around these changes to the institution of marriage. “No matchmaker? No permission from the pappa?” But in each case, he finally comes to accept the new way. Then, the third daughter, Chava, goes too far. She falls in love with the enemy. She decides to marry a young Russian soldier. For poor Tevye, this is too much. If he bends that far, he says, he’ll “break.” So he disowns Chava, and tells his wife their daughter is dead to them. Everyone’s heart is broken. But Tevye is caught within the walls of his own traditions, the same traditions that help them all to “keep their balance.” He sees these traditions as sacred; they are the very embodiment of the Lord’s will. But what Tevye seems to learn through the course of the story is that will is a far larger thing than he can begin to imagine. And it seems to keep getting larger and larger. Finally, in the end, there is a hint that Tevye will learn that will is larger even than his definition of “the enemy.” As they all prepare to leave Anatevka for the last time, and Chava and her soldier are going off down the road, he looks up and says, “May God be with you.”
Not only Tevye, but perhaps, Joseph Stein, who wrote the story of Anatevka, might be blown out of their shoes and socks by the redefinition of marriage taking place in America today.
There is a new world coming. There is always a new world coming. And it’s always a bigger, broader, more inclusive world than any of us is prepared for. The Lord of Life has great plans for us. And our circumscriptions and orthodoxies frequently do more to impede those plans than to promote them. That which we consider secular, even profane, can be inspired with sacred meaning, and that which we hold sacred may serve to separate us from our brothers and sisters, and ultimately from that Lord of Grace.
Matthew begins his Gospel with a thunderous overture. And these strange visitors from the East deliver the message with unmistakable clarity: there’s a new kind of king born in Bethlehem, and it’s a new kind of kingdom; and it’s bigger than you think.
I almost chose to not preach from the lectionary this week. None of the scripture readings seemed to grab me. Until I took a second look at this passage from Luke’s gospel. And here’s what I read all over again for the first time: “And when he was twelve years old, they went up as usual for the festival. When the festival was ended and they started to return, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. Assuming that he was in the group of travelers, they went a day’s journey.” – “they went a day’s journey.” Think about that for a minute. Mary and Joseph left this city for home without their twelve-year-old son, and didn’t notice that he wasn’t anywhere around for an entire day of traveling. Now, those are some seriously laid-back parents. Their inattention is written off with this simple explanation: “Assuming that he was in the group of travelers . . . .” They had just been in a major city, about sixty-five miles from the little town where they lived – a three or four day journey by caravan – and when they left, they didn’t bother to make certain their twelve-year-old son was with them – “Assuming that he was in the group of travelers.” Now, there’s a Bible story for you. But it gets better. After traveling for a whole day without him, they finally figure out he’s not there, so they head back to the city to look for him. It’s a big city. They search for three days! I don’t know about you, but in those circumstances I would be just about at my breaking point. When I finally did find that kid sitting in the temple talking with the rabbis I wouldn’t know whether to squeeze him and slobber all over him for joy, or strangle him! Here’s what Mary did: “When his parents saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, ‘Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.’ He said to them, ‘Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?’” OK, that’s when I decide to strangle him. “But,” scripture says, “they did not understand what he said to them. Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them. His mother treasured all these things in her heart.” She “treasured all these things in her heart.”
The picture I’m getting is of parents who give their twelve-year-old an unbelievable amount of rope, and who aren’t terribly anxious about what he’ll do with it. As far as his mother is concerned, the whole episode seems to have been a treasured learning experience. I don’t know, maybe it’s because people didn’t live as long back then so life was more compressed, but it seems that these parents were already well into the process of letting go of this boy – of giving him wings and letting him fly on his own – at twelve. But it’s clear that the boy was letting go of the apron strings as well. When his parents found him, he said, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” A rather precocious twelve-year-old, to say the least. So, it finally sunk in to me that this story is about letting go. And I figured that’s a pretty apt theme for this last Sunday of 2024, a time for letting go of one year as we reach for another.
You and I tend to cling to so much. And, at times, our death-grip on the things of our lives can be strangulating. We cling, of course, to our possessions. I was walking down the driveway to the mailbox the other day when I spotted a squirrel running off through the underbrush toward a tree. I had an instant, silly thought. I said to myself, “The foolish little animal thinks this is his land. It’s not; it’s my land, and he doesn’t even know it.” Then, of course, I chuckled a bit at myself. It’s not my land any more than it’s his. We’re both just using it while we’re alive on this earth. Some other humans like myself have some pieces of paper on file somewhere claiming that I and my wife “own” this property, as if any creature can own the land beneath its feet. Those pieces of paper on file don’t really make it more mine than the squirrel’s. It’s all just part of the planet that we both happen to be inhabiting for the moment. That realization caught me a little off guard. I want this to be our land. There’s something comforting in the thought of holding that possession. It gives me a sense of security. But changing my outlook, and letting go of “our land,” also felt a little liberating to me. I wonder how much any of us might mature as human beings if we were able to let go of our sense of ownership – of that need to cling to possessions as if we ourselves were the center of a constellation of things that make us important. And that sense of ownership can also be extended to our children. letting go of them is especially hard. But Mary and Joseph are good examples. When a child is given wings and plenty of space, it can be a wonder to behold how they can fly. Letting go of the things to which we cling might actually allow us to have greater respect for those around us, our neighbors, our children, and maybe even the squirrels.
Simone Weil offered a vision of this kind of letting go. She wrote: “To empty ourselves of our false divinity, to deny ourselves, to give up being the center of the world in imagination, to discern that all points in the world are equally centers and that the true center is outside the world, this is to consent to the rule of . . . free choice at the center of each soul. Such consent is love. The face of this love, which is turned toward thinking persons, is the love of our neighbor.”
I tink she’s got it right. We not only hold tight to our possessions, perhaps we hold even tighter to ourselves – or, more accurately, the sense of ourselves – the identity we have created for ourselves over a lifetime of working, relating, and creating. The problem with our desperate hold on this identity is that it’s an attempt to cling to the past, to all that we have known and valued about ourselves and our world. And we are not allowed such a luxury. Life is a dynamic, evolving thing. At times, it seems the only constant is that everything changes. So we are called upon to let go of the past. At regular intervals in the course of our living the parameters of our lives change, the particular challenges to be faced change, even our identities must change.
The pastor and writer, Mike Yaconelli, offered a vivid image of this reality in an article before his death a number of years ago. He wrote: “Once you find where [God’s] trail is, you are faced with a sobering truth in order to go on, you must let go of what brought you here. You cannot go on without turning your back on what brought you to this place. It is like swinging on a trapeze. Once you have gained the courage to swing, you never want to let go . . . and then, without warning (around age 50, for me), you look up and see another trapeze swinging towards you, perfectly timed to meet you, and you realize you are being asked to let go and grab onto the other trapeze. You have to release your grip. You have to reach out. You have to experience the glorious terror of inbetween-ness as you disconnect from one and reach for the other.” I think Yaconelli’s trapeze image is a great one to “hold on to” – so to speak. Every stage of life, it seems, involves a letting go of one bar to reach for another. That can be a very frightening prospect, but it’s absolutely essential.
Ultimately, what all of our years are preparing us for is letting go of life itself. That’s the final challenge. I have spoken to you before about my brother, Bill. In his final days with ALS disease, somehow, he managed to hold on. But in the larger sense he had been letting go – through a remarkable and inspiring process. I believe I’ve related to you before his words to me after his diagnosis. He said that if he could choose a way to die, this agonizingly protracted withering away would be his choice. Because, in his words, “death is the last great adventure in life, and I don’t want to miss a minute of it.” That’s facing into death, and a form of letting go that I have found unbelievably courageous and has inspired me ever since.
Michael Jinkins, the President of Louisville Seminary, writing in the Christian Century some years ago, asked, “. . . ‘What happens when we die?’ I think I would have to say now, ‘We let go.’ . . . Faith is a matter of learning to let go, to entrust ourselves to God. When we die,” he says, “we really do let go. Like a tiny infant unable even to hold onto her mother’s finger, unable to grasp and pull ourselves up, we let go when death is here, and in letting go we are tacitly entrusting all we are to God for whatever may come.”
So, here we are at the doorstep of another year. In truth, January 1st will probably be virtually indistinguishable from December 31st. But all the emotional freight attached to the turning of the calendar makes it a very convenient time for this sort of reflection. The child left behind in the big city and finding his way to the temple and to his future is, in some ways, our story. It summons us to consider what we are letting go of, and what we might be reaching for. The answers to that query may differ among us, but the basic reality is the same for us all. Freedom, growth, and grace in living require that we loosen our grip, so that our hands will be ready to find what the Lord and the future have in store.
I wish for you all open hands, open arms, and open minds; and a very happy New Year.
During these Sundays we have been exploring the Advent themes of Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love reflecting on scriptural passages and poems that I have chosen for each. The last Advent candle on the wreath is the candle of Love. And today I want to look at Love in a way most of us may have never considered. We will approach the manger of Bethlehem and ponder what this Love is that has been born into the world and lies sleeping on the hay. The poem for this morning is a wonderful piece by Robert Frost. It’s titled “Choose Something Like a Star” and you’ll find the words printed on an insert in your bulletin:
O Star (the fairest one in sight),
We grant your loftiness the right
To some obscurity of cloud –
It will not do to say of night,
Since dark is what brings out your light.
Some mystery becomes the proud.
But to be wholly taciturn
In your reserve is not allowed.
Say something to us we can learn
By heart and when alone repeat.
Say something! And it says “I burn.”
But say with what degree of heat.
Talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade.
Use language we can comprehend.
Tell us what elements you blend.
It gives us strangely little aid,
But does tell something in the end.
And steadfast as Keats’ Eremite,
Not even stooping from its sphere,
It asks a little of us here.
It asks of us a certain height,
So when at times the mob is swayed
To carry praise or blame too far,
We may choose something like a star
To stay our minds on and be staid.
I hope you will not mind if this morning’s sermon is not as logically structured as some. Instead, I want to take the poet’s prerogative and allow my thoughts to wander a bit through the darkness and the stars. Hang in with me, please. It is my sincere hope that in the end I will come out in some comprehensible place.
According to the legend in the Gospel of Matthew there was a star that arose in the sky, sending magi from the east to search for a child who had been born to be king of the Jews. This was a most unusual star, indeed. Not only did it appear newly in the sky, but it moved and stood so directly over a stable in Bethlehem that the wise men could find the precise spot. You and I know that this is simply a story – that stars are objects more than a million times the size of our planet and are thousands of light years distant. We know that a star that somehow moved through the cosmos and stood in a place above the little town of Bethlehem to mark the spot would have incinerated and vaporized our planet long before it reached its position above the stable. But all this is perhaps asking too much of this sort of star. It is asking it to:
Talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade.
Use language we can comprehend.
Tell us what elements you blend.
When, really, all a star has to say is, “I burn.” Indeed, our Christmas legend, like Frost’s poem, is metaphor through and through. And you cannot ask a metaphor to adhere to the laws of physics. Frost complains a bit about this, objecting that the star’s nature is cloaked in some “mystery”, and although allowed “some obscurity of cloud” it is not to be “wholly taciturn” and keep all its secrets from us. And the star simply replies, “I burn.”
That reply reminds me of the answer Yahweh gave to Moses on Mount Sinai when asked to disclose the divine name. The Lord said simply, “I Am Who I Am,” and then said if anyone asks my name tell them it’s “I Am”. That is a significant parallel for this morning’s theme especially considering what the apostle John had to say about “I Am.” In the first letter of John, we find these amazing words: “. . . everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.” That’s another doozy of a metaphor. But God as Love may be a lot more on target than our picture of an old man with a long white beard sitting on a cloud. Clearly, it is the Almighty’s preference to not be pinned down any more than the star wants to be: “I am” is enough, as is “I burn.”
While we’re on the subject of metaphors, at this time of year we celebrate the birth of Jesus, but we also regard that birth as a “Light” coming into the world. In the opening verses of the gospel of John, we hear this Light being spoken of as pre-existent. John says (echoing the first verse of Genesis), “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . . What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.” John goes on to say that this “Word became flesh and lived among us . . . .” John sees in Jesus the very light of Divinity – indeed, the light of Love. And he says this “light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”
We all need some light in the darkness. I’ve made an interesting discovery. For most of my life I found the darkness to be quite unsettling. I suppose it goes back to my childhood and fearing the monsters that might lurk in the dark shadows of the room. But whenever I went out of the house at night, I always took a very large flashlight, actually one of those dry cell lanterns that can light up the countryside – you never know what ferocious beasties might be out there in the woods waiting to devour you. But at some point I was surprised to discover that I actually enjoyed going out in the darkness (sans flashlight); the darker the better. I would go down in the mornings before the sun is up to get the newspaper (back when we still got a newspaper delivered in the early morning hours). We have a very long driveway – over four hundred feet, and it winds its way down and up and around to get down to the road. On moonless mornings, walking down the driveway when it is so black outside that I couldn’t quite make out where the drive is, or where the woods are for that matter, became a singular thrill. I made my way down by memory and by the faintest of all lights, the stars. Flashlights are very helpful, and indeed “when you’re in the dark, get a flashlight” is good advice. But it’s amazing how little light you actually need sometimes. That faint, tantalizing, mysterious light of a distant sun compels us, since we’re talking metaphors, to keep moving through the darkness, searching, discovering, finding not just the mailbox at the end of the driveway, but deeper answers.
It will not do to say of night,
Since dark is what brings out your light.
Some mystery becomes the proud.
But to be wholly taciturn
In your reserve is not allowed.
All the star wants to say is, “I burn”; all that the Lord wants to say to say is, “I am”; all the baby in the manger wants to do is cry; but when push comes to shove there’s more to learn. The light of Love that was born on the hay in Bethlehem is the child who grew to ride into the teeth of destruction on the back of a donkey, who healed, and spoke, and stood for justice, goodness, and human compassion, and defended reason and grace over against blind allegiance to dogma. And this he did even though he knew it would cost him his life. This was the Love he taught, and lived, and revealed. This was the light that he brought into the world.
I loved reading Anthony Doerr’s book, All the Light We Cannot See. The story made clear that one of the major sources of darkness is the cloak of intimidation, information control, and brutal repressiveness that was the standard operating procedure of the Nazi regime during World War II. And the “light” that transcends this darkness is to be found in the integrity, courage, and basic human goodness of individuals who rise above the bleak, temporal power of those like the Third Reich. It’s also clear that Love is a key in finding that light.
Love, as Jesus lived it, is made real not only in kisses and soft words, but in the courage to live for others, to give oneself to the cause of justice, to even sacrifice oneself for that which transcends ugliness and spite and endures beyond the grave. Beneath the baby’s cry from the cow stall, if we continue to probe, we discover a world of profound meaning. And if we continue to push the star for its secrets, we must ask more of it than how it burns, more of it than, as Frost says:
But say with what degree of heat.
Talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade.
Use language we can comprehend.
Tell us what elements you blend.
No, we must find the deeper truth it discloses. Standing in the dark, looking up in wonder at its unchanging, steady light, if we are fortunate we might be led by it to a manger in Bethlehem and behold some good news for our lives that might bring to us a great joy. It is what Frost tells us we gain after patiently prodding the star for its secrets. We find:
It gives us strangely little aid,
But does tell something in the end.
And steadfast as Keats’ Eremite,
Not even stooping from its sphere,
It asks a little of us here.
It asks of us a certain height
It asks perhaps just enough height to live for Love and rise above a Nazi machine, just enough height to teach Love and transcend the schemes of the Jerusalem Sanhedrin trying to protect their orthodoxy or the brutality of the Romans dispassionately stifling any resistance, just enough height to calmly proclaim Love and stand above those who panic in the face of terror attacks or call for a modern day crusade against Islam. To maintain such a height requires of us a certain degree of steadfastness – the same quality we see in those dots of light in the night sky. Frost refers to it as being “steadfast as Keats’ Eremite.” The reference is to another poem, one by John Keats that begins:
Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art –
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite . . .
For Keats also there is something grand in the dependable, ceaseless vigilance of a star. He compared it to an Eremite, a Christian hermit. And Keats wished he himself were as steadfast as the star. Although he didn’t want to be a monk, he wanted his steadfastness to be found in the comfort of his “fair love’s ripening breast.” Well, that’s OK too. Love is Love. And being steadfast in love means not turning away from it. It means not turning away from the tenderness and affection. It means not turning away from the challenge of confronting the hateful. It means not turning away from the risk of living for others. It means finding and maintaining a certain height,
So when at times the mob is swayed
To carry praise or blame too far,
We may choose something like a star
To stay our minds on and be staid.
Put another way: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”
Have a blessed Christmas.
It seems almost like trying to gild the lily to offer a sermon after the beautiful sky, the wonderful music, and the lighting of the Advent candle this morning. But I am, after all, a preacher, and you can’t put me in the pulpit without expecting to hear me prattle on about something.
But, seriously, folks, this morning we are continuing the Advent pulpit series in which I am focusing on not only scripture but poems I have selected to deal with the Advent themes of Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love. Today, instead of prattling on, I am sharing some words about something that is at the very beating heart of everything I hold dear and, in some form or another, what I preach about every Sunday: Joy. And in doing so, I’m lifting up a marvelous poem by Carl Sandburg, titled simply, “Joy.” You’ll find it printed on the insert in your bulletin:
Let a joy keep you.
Reach out your hands
And take it when it runs by,
As the Apache dancer
Clutches his woman.
I have seen them
Live long and laugh loud,
Sent on singing, singing,
Smashed to the heart
Under the ribs
With a terrible love.
Joy always,
Joy everywhere –
Let joy kill you!
Keep away from the little deaths.
This poem has been swimming around in my head in one way or another for a long time. It is an elegant statement of something that pervades and animates every sermon I try to deliver. I believe there is something – call it God if you like – that calls to us from the deepest place of our souls and pleads with us to, as Sandburg puts it, “reach out with your hands” and take joy “when it runs by”, to “let a joy keep you.” Being kept by joy is indeed a treasure worth grasping. It becomes a way of life. It is not a fleeting burst of excitement like an eight-year-old running downstairs into the living room on Christmas morning. Those moments are indeed wonderful and not to be diminished. But joy is something much deeper and more profound. To be kept by joy is to discover that wondrous gift of divinity being born within you. That is, I believe why Elizabeth and Mary were so overcome when it was found that Mary was pregnant with Holiness itself. And Mary was wise enough to know that this joy she had found was larger than the moment, larger than herself. It was offered “from generation to generation.” And it had to do with filling “the hungry with good things,” and with the kind of “mercy” that lived in “the promise made to ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.” Joy is larger than the moment. It takes you beyond yourself. It is deeper than any occasion or feeling.
In the immortal poem “An die Freude” or “Ode to Joy” Friedrich Schiller addressed joy, referring to it as a “schöner Götterfunken,” or “beautiful Godspark” I love that turn of phrase. It describes joy as something totally divine and totally beyond comprehension. He says that “Wir betreten feuertrunken, Himmlische, dein Heiligtum!” or “We trespass, drunk with fire, on heaven your sanctuary.” For Schiller (and for me) joy is so holy a thing that we can so easily stumble our way through life recklessly disregarding its wonder and life-giving power. And that power is also the glue that can, if everyone is open to it, bring people together as if in a family. He writes:
Deine Zauber binden wieder
Was die Mode streng geteilt;*
Alle Menschen werden Brüder*
Wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt.
Your mystical power binds togeher
What routines of habit tear apart,
All men become brothers
Where your soft wings sway.
Joy – the kind of joy that blows away our habitual disregard for one another, and wells up from the Divine image that lives in every human breast – the kind of joy that abides in the midst of all trials and traumas, heartaches and losses – that holy joy can be the glue that holds together people of differing backgrounds, races, nations, opinions, and personalities. This morning, as I was wandering around in Face Book, I saw something Judy posted that caught my attention. It was a quote from Teddy Roosevelt: “Comparison is the thief of joy.” That’s it! When we stop sizing up other people and making ourselves feel greater or more gifted, we can be open to the joy that lives in every heart if it is only awakened.
The immortal Howard Thurman, in his book, Deep Is the Hunger, offers a rich description of the kind of joy I’m talking about. “What is the source of your joy?” he asks. “There are some who are dependent upon the mood of others for their happiness. They seem bound in mood one to another like Siamese twins. If the other person is happy, the happiness is immediately contagious. If the other person is sad, there is no insulation against his mood. There are some whose joy is dependent upon circumstances. When things do not go well, a deep gloom settles upon them, and all who touch their lives are caught in the fog of their despair. There are some whose joy is a matter of disposition and temperament. They cannot be sad because their glands will not let them. . . . There are some who must win their joy against high odds, squeeze it out of the arid ground of their living or wrest it from the stubborn sadness of circumstance. . . . There are still others who find their joy deep in the heart of their religious experience. It is not related to, dependent upon, or derived from, any circumstances or conditions in the midst of which they must live. It is a joy,” he says, “independent of all vicissitudes. There is a strange quality of awe in their joy, that is but a reflection of the deep calm water of the spirit out of which it comes. It is primarily a discovery of the soul, when [God’s presence is made known], where there are no words, no outward song, only the Divine Movement.” He concludes, “This is the joy that the world cannot give. This is the joy that keeps watch against all the emissaries of sadness of mind and weariness of soul. This is the joy that comforts and is the companion, as we walk even through the valley of the shadow of death.”
No one could more eloquently get to the heart of things than Thurman. This joy he writes about is the “abundant life” of which Jesus spoke in our reading from John, an abundance in living that he said was why he was doing everything he did; it was what he came to offer. It is found in the unshakeable connection to the Heart of Being that is faith. And it can hold a person securely as might infinite, divine arms through all the high mountains and dark canyons of life. But such joy, treasure that it is, does not come cheaply. It does not make the “valley of the shadow of death” vanish among the hills. It does not vanquish the “emissaries of sadness of mind and weariness of soul.” Indeed, true joy opens itself to such pain, because it need not hide from it. Sandburg offers this truth in the powerful image of an Apache dancer who:
Clutches his woman.
I have seen them
Live long and laugh loud,
Sent on singing, singing,
Smashed to the heart
Under the ribs
With a terrible love.
Sandburg is wise enough to know that grasping joy is akin to seizing love, knowing that your hands finally will be burned. Love that is full and rich and powerful is terrible; it can smash you to the heart; it never comes without some ultimate pain. My life is not a bed of roses, neither is yours; noone’s is. And so joy that holds a person through life never offers shelter from the hurricanes. Carl Sandburg knew that. He left school at age thirteen and worked from that time on: as a milk wagon driver, a porter, a bricklayer, a farm worker, a hotel servant, a coal heaver before he ever took up writing. He knew even as a small child how hard life could be. But clearly he found something in life that convinced him that the cost of joy, like the cost of love, was worth every farthing. Looking into the eyes of one another, we find the truth we are seeking. We know that other lives, like our own, will not be without traumas. But we also know that there is something to be found here when we lift up our hearts together and touch the holiness of Divine Joy that will bind us together and hold all of us securely through all our days.
Carl Sandburg’s final word of advice is ours, and it is seasoned with a caveat. You can try to escape from life’s pain by burying your soul in greed, or work, or frivolous escape, or alcohol, or self-pity. But those are all simply “little deaths.” If you must succumb to something in the end, “Let joy kill you.”
Our headlines are full of destruction, death, and disaster. Turkish backed rebels have captured the cities of Aleppo and Hama in Syria and are now at the gates of Damascus; North Korean troops have joined the Russians in their ongoing assault on Ukraine; Israel continues to pound Gaza in retaliation for it’s invasion last year. How can we come here this morning and celebrate the angels’ song of peace on earth? That is the question staring us in the face today as we continue the pulpit series on “Poetry for Advent”. This Sunday, I have chosen to draw upon the words of Denise Levertov; you’ll find her poem, “Making Peace” on the insert in your bulletin:
A voice from the dark called out,
“The poets must give us
imagination of peace, to oust the intense, familiar
imagination of disaster. Peace, not only
the absence of war.”
But peace, like a poem,
is not there ahead of itself,
can’t be imagined before it is made,
can’t be known except
in the words of its making,
grammar of justice,
syntax of mutual aid.
A feeling towards it,
dimly sensing a rhythm, is all we have
until we begin to utter its metaphors,
learning them as we speak.
A line of peace might appear
if we restructured the sentence our lives are making,
revoked its reaffirmation of profit and power,
questioned our needs, allowed
long pauses. . . .
A cadence of peace might balance its weight
on that different fulcrum; peace, a presence,
an energy field more intense than war,
might pulse then,
stanza by stanza into the world,
each act of living
one of its words, each word
a vibration of light – facets
of the forming crystal.
Her poem speaks volumes about the disturbance in our souls that seeps in over the morning coffee and the bloody headlines. She uses the metaphor of poetry itself to place the realities of our world and its challenge in front of us. “. . . peace, like a poem,” she writes, “is not there ahead of itself.” She could not be more right. The peace we seek not only fails to arrive ahead of itself, it seems to always remain beyond itself – beyond reach. It is very hard to know how we get from this bloody mess that is the world we’ve created to the blessed ideal of peace on earth. Jesus knew that. As he approached Jerusalem two thousand years ago he saw the same bloodstained streets that we encounter today. And Luke tells us that he wept over the city and said, “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace!”
But although this poem of peace that Levertov speaks of “can’t be imagined before it is made” she does give us clues about those “things that make for peace”. Crucially and powerfully she refers to “Peace, not only the absence of war.” There is a world of meaning in that simple phrase. When we bring to mind the hope of peace, you and I so often think merely of how to keep the guns and missiles and bombs at bay. We imagine that if only the people of the earth would stop killing each other we would have peace. And I admit that if everyone would at least stop killing one another that would be a great start. But it is not peace. Peace’s poem
“can’t be known except
in the words of its making,
grammar of justice,
syntax of mutual aid.”
Simply put, peace without justice is no peace. Peace without hearts and hands ready to reach out to others in compassion is no peace.
So, where does this leave us? It leads us back to ourselves and to the wisdom found in this epistle of James: “Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and false to the truth. . . . For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind.” Levertov puts this bluntly:
“A line of peace might appear
if we restructured the sentence our lives are making,
revoked its reaffirmation of profit and power,
questioned our needs . . . .”
This is where the dream of peace on earth begins. It begins with the hard work that is done in each of our hearts. It begins with our learning and exercising the capacity to question the primary place that profit and power hold in our culture and our lives.
And make no mistake, profit and power reign supreme in our land. The profits of the gun industry are sufficient to fund broad scare campaigns that convince millions of otherwise rational Americans that sensible, reasoned regulations having to do with firearms sales mean that the government is coming to take your guns away. It’s not that I don’t understand the knee-jerk reaction; when I read the headlines these days something within me wants to reach for a gun too, but I’ve been around long enough to know that more guns just mean more bullets fired into more bodies. As a former police officer, let me tell you that I agree with a New York Times editorial that said, “It is a moral outrage and a national disgrace that people can legally purchase weapons designed specifically to kill [other people] with brutal speed and efficiency.” I grant you, gun control is not a “silver bullet” – if you’ll pardon the analogy – but it is a very significant step in trying to tamp down the rampant gun violence pervading our culture.
However, it is not only the machinations of power and profit on a grand cultural scale that is our concern, it is ultimately our task, as Levertov puts it, to question our own needs; because that’s where this hard work of crafting the poetry of peace begins. Questioning our own needs means considering the possibility that the needs of others are just as significant, and in some cases more significant. That ultimately leads us to the hardest part of this task, to allow “long pauses. . . .”
Most of us, most of the time, do not pause . . . much. We are busy setting our agendas, filling our needs, making our points, structuring our worlds. We may take short pauses to catch a breath, but they are not the stuff of peace. Long pauses . . . are those large gaps intentionally carved out of our lives that make room for the other. To pause long . . . is to lift one’s head and look; it is to open one’s eyes and see; it is to consider that which lies outside of one’s own needs, interests, and points of view. And that is where peace begins. It begins there because it is only in the long pauses . . . that room is made for something other than the hectic self-absorption that leads finally to winning and losing, control, dominance, and violence. Thomas Howard speaks of “The ordinary stuff of our experience” that reflects much larger issues and realities. He writes that “The sarcastic lift of an eyebrow carries the seed of murder since it bespeaks my wish to diminish someone else’s existence.” He acknowledges that this is not a new insight to most of us but, like Levertov, he knows it is the domain of the poet to make it real. He writes, “The prophets and poets have to pluck our sleeves or knock us on the head now and again, not to tell us anything new but simply to hail us with what has been there all along.”1
So this morning I bring you a brand new idea that is older than the ages: First, practice taking long pauses . . . . Be the peace you want to see come to the world, because that is the only way it will ever come. As Denise Levertov puts it,
“. . . peace, a presence,
an energy field more intense than war,
might pulse then,
stanza by stanza into the world,
each act of living
one of its words, each word
a vibration of light – facets
of the forming crystal.
And so, peace be with us and among us. And may we not simply practice peace, but may we learn to pause long enough to be peace.
1 Thomas Howard, The Novels of Charles Williams, Wipf & Stock, 2004, p. 18.
This morning I begin a four-part series for Advent in which I am bouncing off of not only scripture but poetry. I have chosen poems that I feel help us look more deeply into the traditional Advent themes of Hope, Peace, Love, and Joy. For today I have chosen two poems (you’ll find them printed on your bulletin insert). One of them is very familiar to many of you, I’m sure. It is from Emily Dickinson:
“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –
And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –
I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of Me.
I love this poem. An old dear friend of mine once said that you can tell a poem by whether it “flies” or not. I think this one has sufficient wings. I think what grabs me most about it is the punch line: this hope – this “thing with feathers” – “. . . never, in Extremity, It asked a crumb – of Me.” That brings me to my first observation: hope is not an achievement; it is not earned or acquired with any amount of effort of meditative discipline; it is a divine grace; it is an absolutely free gift. Nonetheless, it seems at times elusive. When the trials and traumas of life mount up, hope can seem to be hiding somewhere – or, according to another poet, bottled up somewhere.
We’ve all heard of Pandora’s box. In our popular culture Pandora’s box is the mishmash of problems mistakenly opened up by some unsuspecting soul. But in the ancient poem from which this notion is taken, Pandora doesn’t actually have a box; it’s a jar. The poem is “Works and Days” by the ancient Greek poet Hesiod. In this epic work Hesiod doesn’t reveal a very high view of women. Pandora is sort of the archetype of all women, and an unflattering one at that. He writes:
The gods’ herald then gave her voice and called this woman
Pandora because all the gods who dwell on Olympos
gave her as a gift – a scourge for toiling men.1
At any rate, Zeus gives a jar full of woes to Epimetheus – which Pandora then opens, apparently on secret orders from Zeus, to release all the evils it contained: hardship, numberless sorrows, and diseases. But for some reason, Pandora was under orders from Zeus to put the lid on before Hope could escape. Hesiod writes:
but the woman with her hands removed the great lid of the jar
and scattered its contents, bringing grief and cares to men.
Only Hope stayed under the rim of the jar
and did not fly away from her secure stronghold,
for in compliance with the wishes of cloud-gathering Zeus
Pandora put the lid on the jar before she could come out.2
Hesiod never explains why Zeus wants Hope to remain trapped in the jar, but the implied assumption is that, with the lid on the jar, men will have only trouble and sorrow with no access to hope. It feels like that sometimes. But I personally like Thomas Bullfinch’s take on the ancient story. He writes, “The whole contents of the jar had escaped, one thing only excepted, which lay at the bottom, and that was hope. So we see at this day, whatever evils are abroad, hope never entirely leaves us; and while we have that, no amount of other ills can make us completely wretched.3
With apologies to Hesiod (and Zeus) Hope is not bottled away from humanity for all time. But it is hard to get a handle on and at times elusive. In truth, I’m preaching an entire sermon about something I don’t entirely understand. I know when Hope – that “thing with feathers” – alights in my soul and makes me mindful of the inexplicable gift it is (that it “never asked a crumb of me”). But I’m not entirely sure from whence it came or wither it goes.
The prophet Jeremiah spoke of a very specific Hope. He writes, “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land . . . .” And we in the Christian Church hear those words as a prophetic hope that was fulfilled in the person of a baby born in a cow stall. And that specific object of Hope – Jeremiah’s Hope and mine – does indeed offer guidance and a light (however diffuse and flickering) with which to see through this world’s often dark path to the justice and righteousness that the Branch of David would execute. But even that light which we celebrate in this season does not entirely illumine the shadowy corners of our experience or fill our hearts with the constant glow of Hope.
What Jeremiah’s affirmation does suggest, however, is that whatever Hope is, it seems to be allied with that other inexplicable and elusive commodity, Faith. I know I’ve tried at least a dozen times in sermons here to offer words that give some metaphorical shape to this thing called Faith (perhaps also something “with feathers”). One of the finest expressions of Faith is offered in our other poem for this morning from Byron.
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.
“Mingling with the Universe” is for me a most elegant expression of the essence of Faith. Indescribable as the experience of it may be, it is most palpable in those moments “in the pathless woods,” or when “There is a rapture on the lonely shore.” It is a sense of not merely knowing, but feeling down to the heart of one’s soul, a participation in the ageless, timeless, boundless Life of all Being. Byron has an equally hard time describing it. He speaks of what it is to, “feel What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.”
For me, the great goal of life is to take those indescribable moments in the woods or at the shore and make them a constant awareness in the depth of my heart – to feel myself mingling with the Universe in every minute of every day: at home in the living room, out at the grocery store, or driving in the car. That’s the closest I can come to telling you what Faith is to me. And it reveals quite a bit about what Hope is to me. Hope is the free gift that comes with Faith – that unshakeable connection with the Heart of Being that in Byron’s words is “the Universe”. When such Faith takes up residence in our hearts, Hope, like a precious bird, alights in our world as a wondrous gift.
But you and I don’t live from day to day and hour to hour in that place of wonder. Instead, we are often like the victims of Zeus’s pranks, living as though Hope were bottled in a jar somewhere with the lid firmly closed while trouble and sorrow harass us like the flying monkeys in the Land of Oz. Worries about our world and its fate, distress about our families, and embarrassment over our failures swirl in our heads and hearts. And the maddening part of it all is that so many of our fears, worries, and troubles are of our own making. It is as though we are frequently stuck in life-draining patterns from which we don’t even know how to think about escaping. Rick Barger writes that, “The hold of the ‘rat race’ is that it works like an addiction. We know we are on a merry-go-round and do not know how to get off of it. Instead of jumping off, we keep buying more tickets. As Saint Paul writes, ‘I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate’ (Romans 7:15).”4
Barger’s image is perfect: we keep buying tickets on the merry-go-round. But I know there is a way off of it. I can’t give you a simple prescription this morning, because indeed what we seek is as elusive as “a thing with feathers”, and is something we might “feel What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.” But the Apostle Paul in his letter to the church at Rome gives us a hint that perhaps even our struggles and woes comprise a good starting point. He writes, “suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us.” Maybe he’s right. Maybe one has to be on the merry-go-round for a time before one knows enough to get off. I have a feeling that a good jumping off place may be discovered “in the pathless woods” where a certain pleasure might be found, or “on the lonely shore” where one might experience rapture. Or, perhaps it may be as simple as opening one’s heart to make it a kind of perch for “a thing with feathers.” In any case, my prayer and my Hope for you and for me in this season of lights is that we may by the miracle of grace approach the manger of Bethlehem and find ourselves mingling with the Universe, and our souls visited by Hope.
1 “Works and Days” in Hesiod, Second Edition, Translation by Apostolos N. Athanassakis, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004, P.67, lines 81-83.
2 Ibid. Lines 95-100.
3 Thomas Bulfinch, Bulfinch’s Mythology , Dell Publishing, 1966, p. 96.
4 Rick Barger, A New and Right Spirit: Creating an Authentic Church in a Consumer Culture, The Alban Institute, 2005, pp. 21-22.
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