[Propertalk] Proper 11 a

[robertpmorrison at charter.net]

I began this at the end of last week and finished yesterday. No doubt 
there are some bumpy joins, so I need to edit and see what works or not. 
Here's a draft!

Bob

THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY 
THE FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
GENESIS 28:10-19a			      		             		            PROPER 11 A
ROMANS 8:12-25						                         10th  JULY, 2011
MATTHEW 13:24-30, 36-43					           PSALM 139:1-11, 22-23

	Want to go to Detroit? No? Yes? I must admit I’m intrigued. According 
to a commercial on TV, we might really enjoy it. What caught my 
attention about the commercial, though, was one statement – “When you 
get to a place where no one knows us, we become truly ourselves.”

	I can see what the ad company is getting at. When no one has any mental 
picture of us, when there’s no past history of our relationship with 
people in any given community, then we’re free to establish our identity 
as we like. We feel that we can let our guard down and let the true self 
become obvious because there are no expectations.

	I’m not sure that it always works that way, but there’s one thing for 
sure. God knows us, who we are and what we’re capable of doing.

	Jacob’s journey had a strange purpose. He was retracing Abraham’s steps 
so that he could find a bride from among a select group of his 
relatives. However, Abraham’s journey had been long enough ago that 
Jacob might as well have been going to Mars. Yet he set out, hoping to 
find a bride who would complement him, his devotion to God and his sense 
of vocation. He set out, not knowing where he’d stop each night and 
whom, if anyone, he might meet.

	It was on one of those night stops that he lay down, hoping that his 
mind would stop worrying about the next day, or what he might find on 
down the road. In the dark, with the likelihood of seeing no other 
person, he settled down to keep warm and to find rest. Maybe he thought 
along the lines of the TV commercial, that he could truly be himself 
where no one would recognise him. It wouldn’t matter if he had any 
annoying habits. And that’s where, apparently, he became truly himself.

	In the darkness, in the deep state of dreaming, of the mind trying to 
tease out the meanings of what he’d encountered through the previous 
day’s exchanges and in his own thoughts about Haran and whom he might 
meet there, in the midst of the subconscious trying to put all the 
pieces together, Jacob discovered his true self. He was someone who had 
the capacity for direct access to God and with whom he could have 
completely open communication.

	Jacob received the assurance that he was doing the right thing. He 
received the same promise that had been offered to Abraham – that his 
“offspring (would) be like the dust of the earth” in numbers.

That’s reassuring – it meant that Jacob would find a partner, someone 
with whom to journey through life. But there was more, he’d inherit and 
control a large territory. He needn’t worry about Social Security 
running dry, or his insurance company increasing his deductible to the 
point that he could no longer afford it, or else Medicare going belly-up

	THAT’S some dream!

	It would have been easy for Jacob to have set that aside as nothing but 
his desire for satisfaction and importance. Somehow, though, God and 
Jacob had such a conversation under cover of sleep that Jacob’s 
understanding of who he was and what he was doing was affirmed.

	We’d be happy to settle for half of what Jacob learned that night. If 
we knew that we had direct access to God; if we learned that God would 
communicate with us freely; if we were given some sort of a clue that 
what we were doing was right, no matter how we may be less than certain 
– if we had any one of these we’d count ourselves pretty blessed.

	The funny thing is, though, that all of these ARE available to us. 	

	The funny thing is that God loves every single one of us. And it shows!

	Some time ago I came across a quote from some unknown writer. She or he 
wrote:
		 “You are 1 person out of 7 billion people
		On 1 planet out of 8 planets
		In 1 star system out of 100 billion star systems
		In 1 galaxy out of 100 billion galaxies
		And you are enormously insignificant.” 1
	I wonder how Jacob felt about himself. Yes, he belonged to a family 
with a bit of clout. He’d been brought up to believe that the Creator of 
all had an interest in their family. But when he went back to his 
ancestral home to find a wife, I wonder what was going through his mind.

	Why did he stop in that particular spot? Could he have walked on 
another mile or two that afternoon and early evening, wanting to get 
closer to his destination? Might he have been less than open to the fact 
that people of his age understood dreams to be the means of 
communication be this world and the realm of the gods?

	I’ve had the experience of being in a certain place at a certain time, 
and not been particularly cognizant of the fact that that’s exactly 
where I‘m supposed to be. I may have been sitting someplace, in some 
supposed anonymity, only to be surprised in a joyful way, and something 
about who I am and what I’m able to do becomes apparent, and turns my 
life around.

	Like Jacob, I may imagine that I’m in a place where no one knows my 
name – kind of the opposite of “Cheers”!  I may not have a clue about 
whether there’s anything significant about that place or the people. 
Without the pressure, then, I act and speak as I feel I want to be. I 
find my true self.

	And the funny thing about this is that my true self, and all the things 
I long for, the things that I feel will make my life fulfilling, these 
are inextricably bound up with who God is and what God wants for me.

	Jacob’s experience is repeated, even here in Oregon. The sort of 
reassurance that Jacob received, that things can and will work out not 
only to the blessing of one individual, but for the benefit of countless 
people and generations.

	That’s the promise that’s extended to every last one of us.

	That quote about us as individuals really needs to be reversed, then. 
Yes, you and I are but one person out of the incredible number on this 
planet, and so on. So was Jacob. But there are no people who’re 
unimportant; no people who’re expendable; no people who’re 
insignificant. Just as there are no places which are insignificant or 
unimportant. Everyone, everything in creation has a role to play, not 
only in giving praise to God, but in encouraging and nourishing
all of our sisters and brothers.

	What may look to you and me as an ordinary traveler through town, and 
an unimportant street corner or park, may be to someone else exactly the 
one person and one place where God and God’s joyful hope are revealed.

	If we look around we can see so much that’s disturbing, so much that’s 
scary, so much that makes us so sad that we wonder why we bother getting 
out of bed in the morning. Our back aches, bills keep coming to our mail 
box, a relative or loved one can’t seem to shake the latest illness, the 
cat just threw up another fur ball on the carpet …. and these are just 
the immediate discouragements. There’s the economic and political scene 
across this nation and the world, there is starvation, and oppression, 
and epidemics, all of which take over the news media. With both large to 
small items, there’s more than enough to make us wonder how we can cope. 
More to the point, our faith in a God who cares, and who’s able to do 
anything out life, our faith can be shaken and tiredness can take over.

	That’s why Jacob’s dream was so significant for him. As hot, and tired 
,and lonely and uncertain as he may have felt, God found a way that 
Jacob could receive the good news. In the stillness of the night, in the 
darkness of the night, God used that place and those stones so they 
became agents of hope and renewal, signs that God was and remains 
present and involved.

	Gisela Raines, correspondent for the British newspaper, “The Guardian”, 
wrote a couple of weeks ago about a pilgrimage she made recently. She 
may have had some of the same thoughts as Jacob when he made HIS 
pilgrimage.

	“I did ask myself the question: ‘Why?’ with a new urgency as I boarded 
the plane to Seville. Who in their right mind would decide to walk from 
Seville to Santiago, some 600 miles, on their own? It had seemed like a 
good idea when I first thought about what do on my sabbatical. I felt 
invited to this walk, somehow, and ‘yes’ had seemed the obvious answer. 
But now that the reality of it dawned I felt terrified, certain it was a 
ridiculous idea. I would get lost, I would get blisters, I would not 
make it all the way, I would feel stupid, I would be a failed pilgrim.” 
2

	When we’re tired of facing the same headlines day after day; of hearing 
the same – quite likely justified – grumbles from our spouse or friend; 
when we find the same routine has become quite monotonous and not half 
as inspiring as it may have been when we started; when we reach those 
dips in our lives we need reminders of the presence of God.
	The great news that shows up constantly in our personal and public 
devotion and worship is that God is ALWAYS present. The even better news 
is that sometimes we’re cognizant of this, and it seems that when we’re 
facing difficulties we DO sense the Presence of God.

	Many people find that these little God-moments occur when, as the 
Christmas carol puts it, “earth in solemn stillness (lies)”. 3 THAT’S 
often when the constant voice of God can be heard.

	Gisela Raines put it, “One of the things that happened to me when away 
from the constant stimuli of daily life and work in a city is that, 
slowly, over the days and weeks, the landscape and all that is part of 
it began to take on a new intensity. The cuckoos and their insistent 
call, the magnificent storks and their scruffy nests on the tower of 
every village church, the rich lichen on ancient stone, the blue of the 
sky, the magnificence of clouds, a shining black horse in an 
unbelievably green field, a crumbling wall, the kindness of strangers, 
the friendship of fellow pilgrims: everything conspired to make me feel 
alive. As did tiredness and blisters and sunstroke and getting lost. ...

“I found myself settling into a rhythm that nourished me long after I 
arrived in Santiago. ... there was for me something unexpectedly 
sacramental in the experience of simply walking day in, day out, through 
huge landscapes.” Just as Jacob found that night as he placed his head 
down on some of the stones which God had created so long before so that 
the pilgrim could rest. THAT’S why Jacob took those stones and made 
visible what they already signified – that they were the altar of God, 
as is all the earth. He left behind a sign to encourage any others who’d 
follow in his footsteps.

When we’re discouraged, then, when we wonder if we’re doing the right 
thing, or that we’ve made the right decision; when we wonder whether or 
not we’re completely alone, we need to remember Jacob and that time of 
ecstatic communication with God, and we need to remember that God is 
still speaking.

Gisela Raines wrote that on her pilgrimage she was encouraged by the 
words of a wonderful poem by the late Anglican priest in Wales and poet. 
May we find encouragement in the Bread Christ gives us for our journeys, 
and in that encouragement to become truly ourselves – in Detroit or not. 
But God IS there too!

	 It was like a church to me.
	I entered it on soft foot,
	Breath held like a cap in the hand.
	It was quiet.
	What God was there made himself felt,
	Not listened to, in clean colours
	That brought a moistening of the eye,
	In movement of the wind over grass.

	There were no prayers said. But stillness
	Of the heart's passions – that was praise
	Enough; and the mind's cession
	Of its kingdom. I walked on,
	Simple and poor, while the air crumbled
	And broke on me generously as bread. 4

NOTES:

1 	 Unknown	 
http://quotevadis.com/post/6353050731/you-are-enormously-insignificant

2	 “An unexpectedly sacramental walk: On my pilgrimage from Seville, I 
found myself settling into a rhythm that nourished me long after I 
arrived in Santiago” by Gisela Raines guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 29 June 
2011 12.05 BST 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/jun/29/walking-pilgrimage-seville-santiago-sacramental

3	“It came upon the Midnight Clear”: Edmund H. Sears

4	“The Moor”	http://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/T/ThomasRS/Moor.htm   R.S. 
Thomas (1913 – 2000) 	http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/r-s-thomas

Robert P Morrison
Interim Vicar
The Episcopal Church of St Alban
PO Box 1556
Albany OR  97321   541-921-1076 (cell)