[Propertalk] Proper 10 c rcl

[Robert P Morrison]

Here's the basis for Sunday's sermon - still time to edit and play with it a bit.

Grace!

Bob


ST ALBAN’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH, ALBANY     THE SEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
AMOS 7:7-17							    PROPER 10 C RCL
COLOSSIANS 1:1-14					   11th JULY, 2010
LUKE 10:25-37							    PSALM 82

	Too often we hear or see something and think we know exactly what’s happening, or what WILL happen. We all have minds, and most of us use them. We all have had experiences in life, some longer than others. But even a new born can tell – I would guess – that if you act up again, you’ll get your diaper changed and milk will appear.
	And this is good. It is right. It’s how we were designed to operate. It’s how people developed. We hope it’s how we continue to learn. But then there are also times when memory, when experience, when reason can get in the way – get in the way of what we’re learning to call grace – the way in which God continues to burst around us to open up our imaginations, perhaps to point out what’s been there all along, although we may never have seen or thought about it.
	The first creature to flop up on to the bank of some primeval pond must have been surprised. I wonder if some of its scum-mates shoved it out as some sort of a practical joke. That’s often how things happen. People, thinking they know all that there is to know, think that doing something to one of the gang will jeopardise its composure, or threaten its comfort.  Only, the joke often turns out to be on the group. The one picked upon may discover something new, something, interesting, something life-enhancing, no matter how anxiety may be produced initially. God, the individual may discover, God is outside the pond as well as in it. God is in the strange and unknown environment as well as in the familiar. God is beyond all boundaries we set up or even come across. Put simply, God is.
	God IS present with us, always, and yet it’s often when we take an unexpected step, when we make an unplanned moved, when we look in a place that’s unfamiliar to us – even when we mix with people with whom we don’t ordinarily associate – often THAT and THERE is where we actually experience the surprise of finding God.
	A physician wrote, “For much of my adult life I did not believe in God. I thought that science and rationality were the keys to unlocking happiness. … I had been brought up in a Protestant household – but it hadn’t taken. Nancy, my wife, was raised in a conservative Jewish home.”
	The doctor talked about how he wrestled with the same problems with which we have to deal but then, he wrote, “I came face-to-face with pain and evil. In one week’s time, three women were admitted through the emergency room” all three had breast cancer, all three were in their thirties, and all three died.”
	He went on to talk about the accidental death of Nancy’s brother and a mentally ill patient who began to stalk him. But he “had no spiritual compass to direct (him) through murky waters.
	“We live in a world of measurements, and yet the evil and pain I was experiencing could not be measured.” So Matthew Sleeth began to search for answers and, after a lot of study and thought, in the hospital waiting room he came across an orange Gideon’s Bible. That’s when he discovered that his “heart needed to change before (he) could make significant changes” 1
	I’d venture to add that his mind had to do a bit of changing too, but I understand what he’s saying. He had to discover for himself that God is everywhere, but that it sometimes takes a sudden pain, a shock to the system, a dashed hope, maybe even a slap in the face, before we realize just how all-around God is.
	And when we can admit to that in our own lives, then things begin to take on different colours. Grace enlarges our vision and expectation four ourselves, for those around us – and for God. 
	So, what DO we expect? Where do we think we’ll find God? And what is God up to?
	What comes to your mind when you hear about L.A.? Hollywood? Emmys? My first thought might be incredibly excessive traffic. My second might be excessively elaborate lifestyles.
	Is that fair? Do we allow first impressions, or prejudices, or what another may have told us overrule what we’re sure of? Do we allow rumour or uncertainty govern our thoughts and behavior? Whom DO we trust? WHAT do we trust? IS all who live in L.A. self-absorbed?  Probably not. I know at least a dozen folk down there, and I’d trust them with my life. But twelve out of how many million? Is twelve enough to change my mind, and all of your minds?
	Charles Ray Williams – now HE changed my mind this week. He’s fifty-nine. Single-handedly he’s beautified an area on which everyone else seemed to have given up. With very limited resources he’s pulled together people from different vocations and conditions so that they’re working together – not only to fend for themselves, but to touch the lives of others. Things are growing – plants as well as human spirits – wherever Charles Ray seems to move. He’s a catalyst who appears to be able to transform bits and pieces of L.A. a tiny bit, or a single person at a time.
	So maybe my conception of L.A. isn’t accurate. Maybe I shouldn’t be afraid of what might lie at the city’s heart. Maybe God’s there. And God IS – in Charles Ray Williams.
	But who IS Charles Ray Williams? Bamboo Charlie is the name by which he’s better known.
	“Amid the gray warehouses, graffiti-covered freeway overpasses and railroad tracks along the Los Angeles River in Boyle Heights, a tiny patch of green thrives.
	“It's off a narrow street lined with warehouses. The first sign of something strange and wondrous is a set of steps, neatly carved out of a bare slope. At the top of the stairs, a chain-link fence with a ‘CLOSED FOR CLEANING’ sign marks the entrance to the domain of ‘Bamboo Charlie.’
	“The gate opens onto a grove of green bamboo. Beyond is an expanse of earth sculpted into terraces and winding pathways. A multitude of action figures, dolls, toy cars, plush animals and religious statuettes are arrayed across this landscape, arranged in scenes or planted along the borders of dirt paths, like runway lights.” 2
	Bamboo Charlie is, I suppose, homeless, and all that that implies. Yet breaks every stereotype you might imagine.
	He’s like every pioneer you might imagine. “In 1992, (he) found a tiny patch of bamboo on an industrial street in Boyle Heights and through the years transformed it into the unique space it is today. He has long moved back and forth between ‘the homeless world’ and ‘the real world’ of rent and responsibilities, and his private oasis reflects that duality. …
	“Even in his ‘homeless world’ Charles Ray Walker demonstrates a strong work ethic, tending to his crops, raking the bamboo clearing and going out to collect bottles and cans past midnight.”
Pat ‘Slim’ McIntyre, a Houston, Texas, steel company supervisor, who’s know him as a co-worker and a colleague for many years, “If I was running a crew right now, I'd take a hundred like him. A hell of a guy,” he said. 
	From what others may seem like a position of hopelessness, he’s almost single-handedly changed the attitudes of other homeless folk and of law enforcement personnel, and of store owners – just by being there; just by working to change attitudes; just by quietly yet forcefully showing people how beauty, how dignity, how compassion, how humanity can be nurtured where others may see dirt, and fear, and confusion.
	Bamboo Charlie may be God’s plumb line for the city of Los Angeles. He may be at least one of the people of God against whom others are to be measured. God DOES have plumb lines. God DOES give measures – NOT to be discouraging or punitive, but to show just what being straight really means. And, guess what, it has absolutely nothing to do with sexuality. I’m sure there’ll be quite a few surprised by that! It has to do with the way we inter-relate with one another. It has to do with the way that we reflect concern for the planet on which we’re offered the opportunity to be nurturing. It has to do with how we respond to pain, and evil, and all their siblings.
	Being straight means bursting through all sorts of preconceptions about who we are and what our values are. It means seeing through all the social and cultural expectations which prevent us from being fully human, from seeing who our neighbours are, and from reaching out to bind up their wounds, and clean up where they live. Being straight means giving others another chance to make a difference for themselves. Being straight – and have you noticed how straight Bamboo usually is? – being straight means making a difference for the whole community, but especially for the ones who’re struggling so much because no one notices what help they really need.
	The U.S. author and humourist, E.B. White is quoted as saying, “I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult.”
	No one said life would be easy. All God hopes is that we’ll be straight!

NOTES:

1 	“The Gospel According to the Earth” by J. Matthew Sleeth. HaperOne. © 2010. Pages ix – xiv.
2	“‘Bamboo Charlie’ builds his private universe” by Hector Becerra, Los Angeles Times July 5, 2010 http://link.latimes.com/r/6NKQ2X/BNU24/Y8BDA1/LJV16/625K2K/JY/h


--
Robert P. Morrison
Interim Vicar
The Episcopal Church of St Alban,
P.O. Box 1556,
Albany, Oregon, 97321

541-921-1076 (cell)
541-967-7051 (church)