Community United Methodist Church
“Don’t Rock the Canoe!”
Matthew 14
August 10, 2008
Life is easier than you think.
All you have to do is
Accept the impossible;
Do without the indispensable;
Bear the intolerable—
And be able to smile at anything! (anonymous)
We spent most of our vacation in a cabin on a lake in
Boats-on-water is the way of life in the upper
Did you know that you are sitting in the boat even now? The part of the sanctuary where the people gather to worship is called the nave, based on the word navis, Latin for boat, as in navy or naval. The early church thought of itself as people in the boat, being tossed by the winds of evil on the seas of chaos.
The story of the disciples in the boat is Matthew’s way of describing the situation of the early church after Jesus’ departure. The boat is the church, the sea the forces of chaos held at bay in the creative act of God, but still threatening. In the Bible and in ancient times the sea always represents chaos, death, anxieties, dark powers that threaten to destroy the good. The sea in Matthew’s story is a barrier that separates the church from Christ, from God. Yet Jesus comes in the darkest hour, against all odds to assure the disciples that they are not alone. And the disciples see him walking on the water. A common motif in ancient religions is that only God walks on water—not defying gravity, but overcoming chaos. Jesus represents the promise of God’s presence with the disciples, with the church, no matter how rough the waters may become.
Matthew was describing for his readers the suffering the early church experienced during its mission sent forth into the dangerous world alone, without Jesus in the boat.
Peter is the typical disciple. He represents you and me. Eager to please Jesus, he doesn’t always understand what’s really going on. He stumbles, he doubts, sometimes he tries too hard. Often we have heard this story preached that if Peter had enough faith he could walk on water. He gets out of the boat, but he becomes afraid, takes his eyes off Jesus, and he sinks. That is a good message. But let’s look at it another way—traditionally walking on water was reserved for deities. Only God can do that. So it’s not up to Peter to be God. But if he truly had enough faith, he wouldn’t have left the boat. Is that really you, Jesus? Prove it to me! I think this story asks us to dare “to believe, in the face of all the evidence, that God is with us in the boat, made real in the community of faith as it makes its way through the storm, battered by the waves.” (NIB)
Perhaps Matthew is saying to us—The 'ship' we are in was not intended to stay tied up to the dock. Jesus asks us to go towards the storm and promises to give us courage in the chaos.
We are not asked to walk on water. We asked to stay in the boat of the community of faith no matter how rough it gets. In August 2006 an African Evangelist Franck Kabele drowned trying to emulate Jesus near Libreville, Gabon. According to an eyewitness: "He told churchgoers he'd had a revelation that if he had enough faith, he could walk on water like Jesus...He took his congregation to the beach saying he would walk across the Komo River estuary...He walked into the water, which soon passed over his head and he never came back."
Professor and author Roberta Bondi had to leave the canoe in a particularly frightening adventure which she describes in her book “Night on the
“When something happens to me that puts me in a place of danger, delight, beauty, loss, illness, accident, or pain that is as far from my ordinary experience as this night was, I need to pay attention, and to pay that attention in the presence of God. When I do, I learn things and receive gifts that I am generally aware I can learn and receive in no other way.…”
I know you have had your wilderness times, times of extreme delight or extreme pain. I know some of your are there right now. Is it possible to pay close attention to what is happening to you? Is it possible to learn things and receive gifts? Can these experiences bring us to transformation into love of God and neighbor and self? Can we trust that Jesus is always present, even if we are forced to leave the boat?
One gift Professor Bondi received was an amazing lack of fear, even though she was convinced that night on
It was growing dark. Jeff, another companion, had severely twisted his knee trying to pull the canoe around and through the deadfall. They finally abandoned the heavy and awkward canoe and tried to hike the river’s bank to safety. It took them all night until early morning before they found their way to a road and the kindness of strangers. It was a powerful wilderness experience for them all, one that gave Professor Bondi a lot of time to pray and reflect upon her life.
Why was she not afraid, even though she was sure she would die? She had a God-moment, a realization that she was not alone, that God was very present to her, and she was convinced that God gives gifts not just to saints, but even to ordinary people. “God reveals Godself as we need God and are able to pay attention to receive God. God picks us up out of our everyday view of things only to set us down again for a little while so that we may see the world, the people around us, and even something of the mystery of God’s self from the place of God’s own compassionate vision.” pp. 36-37
And what did she see from that place? She discovered God in her companions. Being somewhat older and less athletic than her companions, she feared letting them down. She feared ridicule for her exhaustion and need for rest. Instead, she received a love and understanding that more than reminded her of God. On that night she knew God directly. “…Pam’s love carved out for me a space in the wilderness in which it was safe to breathe and accept, in trust of God’s good love, what I thought was my own impending death. The space carved out for me, of course, was God’s space, and Pam’s presence not only her own but also God’s….” pp. 63-64
There are times, not when human beings are changed into some superhuman goodness or nobility, but when we are most ourselves, that we are ‘God to each other.’ There are times when “an ordinary human being who never ceases to be the tattered image of God she or he has always been, becomes completely transparent to God for someone else so that for a little while, the one in need can see God truly through that human being.”
The gift of God’s presence that night was also a gift of realization that she was finally free, “out from under judgment” as she puts it. Raised by oppressive parents, left by her father, taunted by cruel children, emotionally abused by her first husband, taught that God could not approve of her, Roberta Bondi had spent years in prayer and serious study learning how to love herself as God loved. Now, on this dark night she was tempted to fall back into her old self-hatred. But once again she was rescued by the God in her companions. She rediscovered gratitude.
“Finally, I came to know for myself, though I don’t understand it still, that in the time of this beloved God, death has surely been defeated, and all creation—all human beings, all sentient life, all dear ones—all are held in being, healed, cherished in some mysterious way, and nourished on the invisible body and blood of Christ in the eternal now of God.” (pp. 166-168)
What about you? Our boat has been rocking to and fro lately. With so much sickness and so much sadness in our community, it feels as if we going to fall out of the boat. We wonder if anyone is at the other end of the canoe to steady it for us. But fear not. Jesus’ great love for us will rush out on the waters and hold us safely together. Even if we’re sinking, God’s loving hand always reaches out to us to pull us up from the waters and place us back in the boat.
Laughing at God
Genesis 18
June 15, 2008
Have you ever felt like laughing at God?
I know many of you, including myself have often felt like yelling at God, or even punching God in the face if you could find a godly face. There is plenty in life to disappoint you, to frustrate you, to break your heart, to make you angry enough to spit nails, or sad enough to cry rivers.
But have you ever felt like laughing at God? We might smile at sensing God’s presence in our lives. We might go so far as to laugh with God about some surprising happiness in our lives. But to laugh at God seems to be disrespectful. To laugh at God seems to be derisive, smart-alecky. When you laugh at someone, you are usually making fun of something they said, or how they look, or what they think.
Sarah laughed at God, thinking God’s promise to her husband that she would be pregnant this time next year was ridiculous, especially since she was so old, and had been barren for so long.
Let’s back up and look at the story. We last saw Abram and Sarai leaving
Once again God promised Abram that, even though the land was already occupied by many other people, God would give it all to Abram and his descendents. This was confirmed by a complicated ceremony involving animals cut in half and a flaming torch. What the people already living there thought about that promise, we probably can guess, considering the newsx from the
Now Abram and Sarai were still without children, and Sarai was feeling hopeless about it, so she encouraged Abram to sleep with her Egyptian servant Hagar. When Hagar learned she was pregnant, she began to feel superior to her barren mistress, or perhaps Sarai was extra sensitive. At any rate Sarai began to abuse Hagar. Hagar ran away, but was found near a spring in the desert by an angel of God, who told her to go back to Sarai, put up with the abuse, because Hagar’s son will also be the father of a big family—here the Arabs and Muslims trace themselves back to Abraham.
God told Abraham that he had to honor his covenant with God by being circumcised and by circumcising every male from then onward. So he took his son by Hagar, Ishmael, into the family and they went on their way.
Now we come to the reading for today, where God appeared to Abraham at the Oaks of Mamre as three men. (You might recall that on Trinity Sunday the bulletin cover was an icon depicting these three men as the Holy Trinity.) Abraham is careful to honor his guests with the best hospitality, as was required in those days. Hospitality was next Godliness, even more important than protecting your own daughters, as we will learn in a later story. While Sarah is in the tent, where the women were required to be in those days, she overhears these three strangers announce that by this time next year she will have a son of her own. Both Sarah and Abraham were now very old and way past child-bearing years, and so Sarah laughed at the thought that she might still get pregnant and have a son. God did not get the joke, however, complaining to Abraham about his scoffing wife. Sarah lied out of fear, saying she did not laugh, but God heard her. You did laugh. Then the three men as God got up and left for their next appointment—
Sarah laughed at God. To be fair, I left out the part when Abraham earlier did the same thing for the same reason; he even fell on his face and laughed at God. They both laugh at God for making what seemed to be outrageous, impossible promises.
They had been mocked for years, for God had promised that they would have descendants as many as the stars in the skies. Here, 25 years later, they haven’t even had their first child, and it was really too late. What was God waiting for? Had Abe been totally delusional in thinking he heard God ‘s promises?
Is anything impossible for God? Tevye, the old man in Fiddler on the Roof says:
“OF COURSE God can!
But He doesn’t, does he?
So how is that supposed to help me?”
Is world peace really possible? We laugh.
Can every child have enough to eat every day? We laugh.
Will we ever learn to love our enemies? We laugh.
Will she ever forgive me? We laugh.
Will I ever be able to love again? We laugh.
Will I ever feel like God forgives me and loves me anyway?
We laugh.
At least we are in good company. As I said last week, God can and will use any scoundrel to make good things happen. Author Eugene Peterson puts it this way: “God, it turns out, does not require good people in order to do good work. As one medieval saying has it, ‘God draws straight lines with a crooked stick.’ He can and does work with us, whatever the moral and spiritual condition in which he finds us. God, we realize, does some of his best work using the most unlikely people.”
Here’s a story from preacher Barry Robinson: One Christmas season many years ago, I was deep into feeling sorry for myself. Susan and I had been invited to a party thrown every year by two friends of ours named Tom and Cindy. Tom was a marriage and family therapist and his wife Cindy was a child-therapist. They were a couple who loved each other immensely and the annual Christmas get-together was a way in which they shared the joy that filled their hearts. We were both looking forward to the party when, as it turned out, Sue ended up being scheduled to work that very evening. Reluctant to go by myself, I settled into a blue funk for the next couple of weeks and had decided to stay home when Sue suggested an alternate possibility: why didn’t I crash the party in disguise. Sue and I had been fascinated with the art of clowning and mime during those years, had spent considerable time studying the art, practicing with other professionals and developing routines of our own in which we would show up unannounced to present “a gift” to an unsuspecting friend/victim. I was hesitant to follow Sue’s advice, in spite of knowing Tom and Cindy well enough to feel comfortable planning such “a surprise” for them.
Nevertheless, at the last minute a spirit of mischievousness got the better of me and, before I knew it, there I was one wintry night, trudging through the drifts in my clown clothes and grease-paint, tooting my clown horn at the front door to announce my entrance and then whisking past the surprised faces of the assembled guests before anyone could think fast enough to slam the door in my face.
The house was wall-to-wall “beautiful” people and Cindy and Tom were nowhere to be seen. So I decided to start a room-to-room search, playing with the guests as I went. With few exceptions, they were a cooperative lot, permitting me to “anoint” them gently with pieces of Christmas tinsel and to mime “BEAUTIFUL!’ as I pretended to stand back and take their pictures. By the time I reached the dining room I had fifty people in tow, all of them wondering what I was going to do next... when Tom suddenly spotted me from across the room and yelled, “What’s THAT CLOWN doing at my party!?” I was in luck. He didn’t recognize me; and after doing my shtick with him for a few moments, I pulled out two, small, gift-wrapped packages, one marked “Tom” and the other marked “Cindy”, and mimed to Tom, “Where’s Cindy?” Tom played along as we searched the house, guests in tow until we found Cindy talking with some friends in the front entrance hallway.
There, with all the guests looking on, I maneuvered Cindy and Tom into position and bid them open their gifts—two, snazzy, black bow-ties, complete with flashing red-lights! Tom obliged by putting one on under his collar, Cindy by tying hers around her head. Then I invited them to put their arms around one another as I pretended to take their picture and backed out the front door to make my getaway. Just before I closed the door behind me, Tom realized who it was; and, with what I thought just might be a catch in his voice, I heard him say, “Thank you, my friend!”
Four days later, Tom called. I could tell as soon as he started that something was wrong. “I’ve tried phoning you half a dozen times,” he said, his voice starting to crack, “but each time I started crying and hung up.” My heart was in my mouth and I was too afraid to say anything. “You had no way of knowing, of course,” Tom went on; “but the night of the party Cindy and I were in the midst of the biggest fight of our marriage. We had both made attempts to make up; but just couldn’t get it together. By the time guests started arriving, we were doing our best to avoid each other. There was this huge wall between us. And then,... this clown shows up, dresses us up in fantastic bow ties, makes us hug each other and... (at this point I could hear him choking back the tears) and the wall suddenly came tumbling down.”
By then, I was in tears and for a few moments neither of us said a word. Then, just before he hung up, Tom regained his composure just enough to blurt out, “Thank you, my friend, for one of the best Christmases of our lives! Christ, the Savior, is born!”
And when I got off the phone, I thought I heard the unmistakable echo of laughter coming from somewhere deep down at the very heart of things. (KEEPING THE FAITH IN
We are always ready for disappointments, but are we ever prepared for God’s amazing grace? Do we need to be? Don’t laugh it off, but just take it, giggle and run! Amen.
“The Three That Seek My Heart”
May 18, 2008
Today on the Church Calendar is called Trinity Sunday. It is a good time to reflect upon the idea of three-in-one and what it means for us today.
The doctrine of the Trinity does not appear in the Bible, although many different ways to refer to the divine experience in human lives are mentioned, including Father, Mother, Creator; Wisdom, Jesus, Son, Redeemer; and Spirit of God and Holy Spirit. But as a set doctrine, like so many other Christian beliefs, the idea of God as three-in-one, or the one-as-three, didn’t enter Church doctrine until the 3rd and 4th centuries of the early church. It was based on Greek philosophical ideas and it persists in the church today as a way to understand our experience of God. Many churches place so much emphasis on the Trinity that they name themselves after it, or call themselves Trinitarian. Many world religions find meaning in pairs and in threes. Among the children of Abraham, Christians are accused by some Jews and some Muslims of worshipping multiple gods instead of the One true God.
However, it need not be a confusing problem. Just think of how many different ways you experience God—in creation, in your loved ones, in a mystical way inside your heart. There are comforting ways to understand the Trinity. The Russian Orthodox icon of the Holy Trinity painted by Andrew Rublev in 1425 on the surface depicts the three angels who appeared to Abraham and Sarah at the Oak of Mamre. Henri Nouwen described it as the House of Perfect Love—a protection against the fearful world, but also a revelation of the inner beauty of God. Rublev’s Icon of the Trinity shows three figures—three divine messengers—who are visiting the Old Testament patriarch Abraham. They sit at a small table, each figure representing a person of the Holy Trinity, and as they sit, they point to a chalice on the table, a symbol of God’s overflowing love. But they sit only on three sides of the table. There’s an open side, and one of the figures points to the vacant space inviting the viewer—inviting you—to sit down with the three persons and share fellowship. The icon invites us to share the overwhelming divine love that exists among the three figures at the table and to become a participant in sharing the mystery of divine life and love. It pictures God’s great desire to draw us in and to share the divine life with us. Here the TRINITY shows us God IN COMMUNITY, God as LOVE.
As I was thinking about the Trinity this week, I was reminded of the old Celtic prayers collected many years ago in the Hebrides off the coast of Scotland. These prayers indicate a deep personal relationship with the trinity in all aspects of daily life. A woman would rise in the morning and wash her face with three palmfuls of water, one each for Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Here is a prayer for the baptism of a child:
The little drop of the Father
On thy little forehead, beloved one.
The little drop of the Son
On thy little forehead, beloved one.
The little drop of the Spirit
On thy little forehead, beloved one.
To aid thee from the fays,
To guard thee from the host;
To aid thee from the gnome,
To shield thee from the spectre;
To keep thee for the Three,
To shield thee, to surround thee;
To save thee for the Three,
To fill thee with the graces;
The little drop of the Three
To lave thee with the graces.
Celtic Christianity has much to offer us as a very positive view of humanity and a strong emphasis on the Trinity alive in daily life. In their poems and prayers, Celtic Christians moved from the abstract to the actual; for them, the triune deity was not a theological concept but rather was deeply embedded in daily life. In the Celtic imagination, God, Christ, and Spirit are intertwined with one another and with all of creation.
I think it might be helpful to give you a very quick description of how Celtic Christianity is unique. First, a history sketch: Christianity came to Britain probably with the Roman invasion early in the 3rd century. Rome was sacked by the barbarians in the 5th century, causing the Roman army to withdraw from Britain and go home. The Brits and Celts were left alone for 200 years to develop their own style of Christianity as a natural outgrowth of the folk religion which already existed. However, by the 7th century the Roman Church had grown in power and influence, and convinced King Oswy of Northumbria that the Roman idea of Christianity was the only right idea, and so the Celtic Church became the wrong idea of Christianity, and nearly disappeared. Since the British islands and Ireland were so isolated, it was hard to impose outside central Roman authority, and the Celtic ideas lived on.
Fortunately for us, it is experiencing a comeback among many modern Christians, and here is why: Major characteristics of Celtic spirituality: (Newell, p. 87-89)
Celtic spirituality is based on a love of nature and a passion for the wild and elemental as a reminder of God's gift. Love and respect for art and poetry and for the great stories and "higher learning" is a very important part of life.
There is a sense of God and the saints as a continuing, personal, helpful presence. It is theologically orthodox, yet with heavy emphasis on the Trinity, and a love and respect for Mary, the Incarnation of Christ, and Liturgy. Women had more equal footing in ancient Irish law, thus had more equal say in church government. The Celts developed the idea of having a "soul friend" (anmchara) to help in spiritual direction. There is always a sense of closeness and immanence between the natural and supernatural. Along with a mandate for hospitality and an emphasis on family and kinship ties, the Celts’ Christianity was always a warm, compassionate, joyful affair.
In Listening to the Heartbeat of God, author J. Philip Newell writes “To be spiritual is not to turn away from the world, but to go more deeply into life, to find God at the heart of life, deeper than any wrong, and to liberate God’s goodness within us and in our relationships, both individually and collectively.” (Newell, p. 79)
In The Celtic Way of Prayer by Esther de Waal, we read of a “God who is Trinity, the God whose very essence is that of a threefold unity of persons, three persons bound in unity and love.” The Trinity expresses “A profound experience of God.”
St. Patrick used the shamrock to say that “Your God is a God who is Three-in-One and this is the most natural and immediately accessible thing in the world!”
“This is not a Trinity that is remote, distant, inaccessible.” There are analogies not only in nature but also in daily life:
Three folds of cloth, yet only one napkin is there
Three joints in the finger, but still only one finger fair
Three leaves of the shamrock, yet no more than one shamrock to wear
Frost, snow-flakes and ice, all in water their origin share
Three Persons in God; to one God alone we make prayer
A very simple Celtic prayer goes:
O Father who sought me
O Son who bought me
O Holy Sprit who taught me
Esther de Waal than asks us to consider how we may use these ideas—
1. Think of the making and creating role of the Father/Mother, and how much your life can be seen as cooperation with that: anything you do to create, to awaken, to cherish new life, what you do to mold and shape your environment.
2. Think of the redeeming role of the Christ the Son, and all that you do in working with people
3. Think of the work of the Holy Spirit, and your attempts to offer compassion, forgiveness, and healing to others
I offer you a final Celtic prayer which you may adapt to your own life this week:
The Three Who are over me,
The Three Who are below me,
The Three Who are above me here,
The Three Who are above me yonder,
The Three Who are in the earth,
The Three Who are in the air,
The Three Who are in heaven
The Three Who are in the great pouring sea.
2008
May 4, 2008 "Wait, Pray, Love (B. Allen)
April 27, 2008 "The God Gene"
April 20, 2008 "A Dangerous Christ" (Oscar Romero)
April 13, 2008 "I Am the Good Gate"
April 7 "One Hand Clapping"
March 23 "Openings Without End" (Easter)
March 20 "Judas" (Holy Thursday)
March 16 "Christ and Pilate: Clean Hands, Dirty Heart"
March 9 "Dry Bones in the Valley"
March 2 "Earth in Eyes"
February 24, 2008 "Thirst" (B. Allen)
February 17, 2008 "Wind and Wonder"
February 6 (Ash Wednesday) "Hot Coals in the Ashes"
February 3 "Transfiguration"
January 27, 2008 "Salt and Light"
January 20, 2008 "Bless You!"
January 13, 2008 "A Feather on the Breath of God"
January 6, 2008 "Arise, Shine!"
2007
November 4 "This Table Belongs to Jesus"
September 16 "Jesus and Mohammed"
September 9 "What is the church? Perseverence"
July 22, 2007 "How to get out of doing the dishes"
July 15, 2007 "The stupid Samaritan"
July 8, 2007 "Gonna step right in"
July 1, 2007 "Going to Jerusalem"
