Grace Episcopal Church, Monroe, La.
My
house is full of treasure. NOT the kind of treasure any treasure hunter worth
his or her salt would want! But treasure, nonetheless.
For example, on the window sill in my bedroom is a reddish, grayish rock from Georgia O’Keefe’s Ghost Ranch in New Mexico. That rock was lugged all the way home to me by Joe and Cathi Roberts… just because I asked for it when I learned they were going there a few years ago. A treasure for sure.
For example, on the window sill in my bedroom is a reddish, grayish rock from Georgia O’Keefe’s Ghost Ranch in New Mexico. That rock was lugged all the way home to me by Joe and Cathi Roberts… just because I asked for it when I learned they were going there a few years ago. A treasure for sure.
Another
treasure in my house is a section of armadillo tail from a road kill, picked
clean by an army of ants and other tiny critters… such that the extraordinary
underlying boney architecture is fully revealed. What in the world is up with
that?! Treasure!
I
picked up one of my treasures and brought it with me this morning. I know it is
too small for you to see, but I’ll have it in my pocket at the back of the
church should you want a close look.
It’s
a small, lumpy, rather modest looking little rock.. about the size of a
meatball. What makes this rock treasure—as if being small, brown and lumpy
weren’t enough… What makes this rock treasure is that it has a heart-shaped
hole in the side. It’s a rock with a heart*.
This little treasure has appeared in more than one sermon over the years. And that is because I have come to see it as an apt metaphor for the relationship between we humans and God.
We too are small—in comparison to God. We’re kind of lumpy, each having our own annoying bad habits and character flaws that irritate the dickens out of our family and friends. And we can be pretty hard hearted! Or, as God was inclined to say throughout the Hebrew Scriptures whenever the Israelites got on his last nerve: You are a stiff-necked people!
We are. But not because we are evil, or a mistake of creation, or—as my late husband used to say—a “waste of skin.” Far from it. God made us and we are good.
But we are also often painfully aware of our smallness and ultimate powerlessness. We cannot stop bad things from happening, and we know it. We are wounded by the inevitable challenges and suffering of human life. We are hurt by others who betray our friendship, who hurt us with their words that seem to deny our point of view or what we hold dear. And we harden our hearts.
But like this rock, we have a God-shaped hole in the side of our tiny, frightened, lumpy human hearts. Nothing can fill that hole except God… because God put it there with great love and tenderness as a homing device, to help us remember to whom we belong.
Oh, we do try to fill it with other things! Possessions. Money. That ideal job, the perfect spouse—who always turns out to be not quite perfect, just like us. A magnificent house, a political party or ideology, loyalty to our nation, even our beautiful church building or our liturgy—all of these can become idolatries, which is to say things we try to use to make life meaningful, satisfying, less frightening, more predictable, safe and secure.
And none of them will ever work for very long. Because the hole in our heart is God-shaped and can never be filled with anything other than God.
Emily Dickinson is one of my favorite poets--a woman of few but perfectly chosen words. Here’s her poem titled “To Fill a Gap”:
To fill a Gap
Insert the Thing that caused it—
Block it up
With Other—and 'twill yawn the more—
You cannot solder an Abyss
With Air.
Human life separate from God is an abyss, and no matter how hard and fast we seek to stuff that abyss with all those things other than God, the more hollow and empty we will be. And I do believe idolatry—putting nation or political party or social status or financial security—at the center of our lives and priorities and aspirations is The Major Sickness of our society today. It is surely a large part of the hurtful divisions that afflict us.., the difficulty we have finding common ground with those with whom we disagree.
Estranged from God, we are sheep without a shepherd. That’s why we are driven to seek God. That’s why the people in today’s Gospel story hounded Jesus, chased after him such that he couldn’t even stop and enjoy a mean. They literally ran around the Sea to meet his boat on the other side.
And he had compassion on them. We—the people within the fold of the Episcopal Branch of God’s Church—WE are among the truly blessed because we know that in searching for and seeking God, we will find unconditional love and mercy and forgiveness.
Not everyone knows that! Not even all Christians know that! Some branches of the Christian faith teach a God of wrath, a judgmental God who is just waiting for us to do something wrong in order to smite us.
A few years ago when we consecrated Jake Owensby to be the 4th Bishop of Western Louisiana, I had the exquisite privilege of serving Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori as her chaplain for the several days she was in Louisiana. Imagine that! Hanging out with the PB for two and a half days!
And she told me this story: She was walking through an airport one day, making a short connection between flights on one of the many trips a presiding bishop must make around the country. And a man, a complete stranger to her, came alongside as she was walking and asked if she was a “pastor.”
She said, “yes,” but explained that she really had to keep walking or she would miss her flight. So the man walked alongside her and she did pastoral counseling as they strode through the airport.
The man’s problem was that he had cheated on his wife. And he wanted to know, “Will God ever forgive me?”
I didn’t ask Bishop Katherine what she said to him. It would not have been appropriate to ask. But I think I know.
I’m pretty sure she said something along the lines of this: “God has already forgiven you. Our God of compassion is waiting with open arms for you to turn and accept.. love, mercy and forgiveness.
Your wife, on the other hand, might need some persuasion.” Or words to that effect!
The whole point of Jesus’ life and death is to teach us compassion, and not just for our own families, friends, neighbors who look and think like us. That’s the easy part. That’s practice for the hard stuff.
This little treasure has appeared in more than one sermon over the years. And that is because I have come to see it as an apt metaphor for the relationship between we humans and God.
We too are small—in comparison to God. We’re kind of lumpy, each having our own annoying bad habits and character flaws that irritate the dickens out of our family and friends. And we can be pretty hard hearted! Or, as God was inclined to say throughout the Hebrew Scriptures whenever the Israelites got on his last nerve: You are a stiff-necked people!
We are. But not because we are evil, or a mistake of creation, or—as my late husband used to say—a “waste of skin.” Far from it. God made us and we are good.
But we are also often painfully aware of our smallness and ultimate powerlessness. We cannot stop bad things from happening, and we know it. We are wounded by the inevitable challenges and suffering of human life. We are hurt by others who betray our friendship, who hurt us with their words that seem to deny our point of view or what we hold dear. And we harden our hearts.
But like this rock, we have a God-shaped hole in the side of our tiny, frightened, lumpy human hearts. Nothing can fill that hole except God… because God put it there with great love and tenderness as a homing device, to help us remember to whom we belong.
Oh, we do try to fill it with other things! Possessions. Money. That ideal job, the perfect spouse—who always turns out to be not quite perfect, just like us. A magnificent house, a political party or ideology, loyalty to our nation, even our beautiful church building or our liturgy—all of these can become idolatries, which is to say things we try to use to make life meaningful, satisfying, less frightening, more predictable, safe and secure.
And none of them will ever work for very long. Because the hole in our heart is God-shaped and can never be filled with anything other than God.
Emily Dickinson is one of my favorite poets--a woman of few but perfectly chosen words. Here’s her poem titled “To Fill a Gap”:
To fill a Gap
Insert the Thing that caused it—
Block it up
With Other—and 'twill yawn the more—
You cannot solder an Abyss
With Air.
Human life separate from God is an abyss, and no matter how hard and fast we seek to stuff that abyss with all those things other than God, the more hollow and empty we will be. And I do believe idolatry—putting nation or political party or social status or financial security—at the center of our lives and priorities and aspirations is The Major Sickness of our society today. It is surely a large part of the hurtful divisions that afflict us.., the difficulty we have finding common ground with those with whom we disagree.
Estranged from God, we are sheep without a shepherd. That’s why we are driven to seek God. That’s why the people in today’s Gospel story hounded Jesus, chased after him such that he couldn’t even stop and enjoy a mean. They literally ran around the Sea to meet his boat on the other side.
And he had compassion on them. We—the people within the fold of the Episcopal Branch of God’s Church—WE are among the truly blessed because we know that in searching for and seeking God, we will find unconditional love and mercy and forgiveness.
Not everyone knows that! Not even all Christians know that! Some branches of the Christian faith teach a God of wrath, a judgmental God who is just waiting for us to do something wrong in order to smite us.
A few years ago when we consecrated Jake Owensby to be the 4th Bishop of Western Louisiana, I had the exquisite privilege of serving Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori as her chaplain for the several days she was in Louisiana. Imagine that! Hanging out with the PB for two and a half days!
And she told me this story: She was walking through an airport one day, making a short connection between flights on one of the many trips a presiding bishop must make around the country. And a man, a complete stranger to her, came alongside as she was walking and asked if she was a “pastor.”
She said, “yes,” but explained that she really had to keep walking or she would miss her flight. So the man walked alongside her and she did pastoral counseling as they strode through the airport.
The man’s problem was that he had cheated on his wife. And he wanted to know, “Will God ever forgive me?”
I didn’t ask Bishop Katherine what she said to him. It would not have been appropriate to ask. But I think I know.
I’m pretty sure she said something along the lines of this: “God has already forgiven you. Our God of compassion is waiting with open arms for you to turn and accept.. love, mercy and forgiveness.
Your wife, on the other hand, might need some persuasion.” Or words to that effect!
The whole point of Jesus’ life and death is to teach us compassion, and not just for our own families, friends, neighbors who look and think like us. That’s the easy part. That’s practice for the hard stuff.
We followers of Jesus are called specifically to love our enemies and pray for those who hurt us. We are called to welcome the stranger, to treat those from other lands as if they are one of us, to care for the poor, the sick, and the prisoner.
We have a God-shaped hole in the side of our heart that compels us to seek the compassion and healing love of God for ourselves. But then a mysterious and wonderful thing happens. When we allow God to fill that hole, our hard little hearts soften, expand, open up.. to people of all sorts and Creation—all of it.
Jesus said, “Love one another as I have loved you.” And then he added, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses …to the ends of the earth.”
Imagine that: Love to the ends of the earth! Love from our God-filled hearts to the world. So be it. Come Lord Jesus.
AMEN
(The video above is from the website of Doctors without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres, a charity I support as often as I can. It needs no translation so far as I can tell.)
*My book of sermons published in 2016 is titled "A Rock with a Heart: Finding Heaven on Earth." I have copies available for $20, of which $3 goes to my ministry fund.
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