[Propertalk] Proper 15 b

[robertpmorrison at charter.net]

I had quite a tussle with this week's propers for some reason. Anyway, 
here's what will be dinner time reading and evening cogitation.

Bob


THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY                      THE 
TWELFTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
1 KINGS 2:10-12; 3:3-14                         	    	                                        	 
PROPER 15 B RCL
EPHESIANS 5:15-20		                                                	               	 
19th AUGUST, 2012
JOHN 6:51-58        						               	               PSALM 111

	“Grant us wisdom, grant us courage”.

	How often have you sung these words? I don’t memorise things that 
easily, but this is from a hymn that’s been with me since I was pretty 
young. Yet that line, “Grant us wisdom, grant us courage” isn’t always 
the first thing that comes to mind. I wonder why. Is this not a good 
idea? Are we so focussed on something else, both in life in general; and 
in everything else that impacts our lives, that we don’t look for wisdom 
and courage? Are we reluctant to ask God about this, in case we don’t 
like what happens?

	When Solomon became king on the death of his father David, the 
political fallout from the civil war was still there. There were 
factions and, even if it wasn’t immediately visible, intrigue and 
plotting can’t have been far below the surface. So Solomon had to do 
something not only to ensure that he’d remain on the throne but that the 
country would prosper.

	It’s easy to transfer images of what was going on in Israel 
twenty-eight-odd hundred years ago to this election year in our own 
situation in the world. And it’s fairly easy to transfer Solomon’s 
personal situation – his kingship aside – to our own life today. The 
choices tend to remain the same, and there will never be a time when we 
don’t have to make decisions.

	If we feel that our political party or our favourite candidate not only 
deserves, but needs to win so that certain policies may be maintained or 
adjusted, then we probably wish that that party or that individual had 
unlimited resources to buy TV and print ads, to hire people to hold 
meetings, or run phone banks and go door-to-door.

	If in our personal lives, like many, we have to prioritise how to spend 
what money we have, which choice will benefit us most, or raise our 
spirits, or refresh and encourage us, then we may find yourself praying 
that we don’t ever have to worry, that we can afford health care AND 
rent; the power bills AND a trip to the coast; eating out AND going to a 
movie or a play.

	These are some of the things with which most of the people in this 
community have to struggle quite often. Then there’s the human 
dimension. There’s tension in our families because a relationship has 
soured, or someone misunderstood what we said and did. Take it to the 
ultimate extreme and step back a week in our Old Testament readings and 
think about David and Absalom at odds with one another, not just over 
the matter of personalities, but who will have control, to the point 
that one may never speak to the other again in this life.

	This happens now too.

	The amazing thing about life is that we aren’t driven mad by all the 
choices we have to make; the amazing thing is that for the most part we 
survive what decisions we actually take, or else find a way to make 
course corrections to get us out of danger. And I can only attribute 
this to God’s gifted blessing to us.

	Solomon hadn’t been king for long before he realized the enormity of 
the tasks that lay ahead of him, and it was at that point that he began 
to realise God’s care and concern for him.

	There’s no record of whether or not David had taken him to worship. 
There’s an assumption that may have passed along some sense of his own 
dealings with God. However, we don’t have much to on. And with regard to 
how Solomon and God first connected, we don’t have too many details how 
this happened. We read simply that God came to Solomon in a dream. So we 
should retain the reminder that God can speak to us in so many different 
ways and we do our best to cultivate our relationship.

	I think we share many of the difficulties faced by Solomon. No doubt 
the scale is different, but he’d come to the realisation that it wasn’t 
enough to satisfy his own wishes if it meant that others would be 
stressed or if they’d be hurt. If he claimed authority in God’s name, 
and then threw his weight around; if he ignored what effects might 
ripple out into the countryside away from where he was; if he was 
accidentally or deliberately ignorant of how his own wishes and 
behaviour would affect others, he’d run the risk of facing God’s 
prophets’ condemnation. If what he did pitted opposing forces against 
one another, rather than helping them to find some way to be able to 
communicate with one another, he’d be abusing God’s hopes for him. Not 
that Solomon lived in a democracy by any stretch of the imagination. 
Nevertheless, his authority was derived from the love, the justice and 
the mercy of God. THAT’S why he asked for wisdom to sense his role in 
Israel and to clarify his mind.

	So should we. When Jesus told His friends that He would no longer be 
visible he said straightway that the Holy Spirit would be present for us 
to guide us. He knew that without the Spirit’s infusing our lives we’d 
be lost. It’s the Holy Spirit who reminds us that we live in community, 
with responsibility for one another.  No matter how old or young we may 
feel we are; no matter whether we’ve been baptised for ninety years or 
seven days, or not yet baptized, we all stand in the same place as 
Solomon, seeking guidance to do even the most simple things, because we 
never know when what we do will influence others and how. Sometimes 
events are out of our control, of course. We get caught up as if in the 
wash of a boat moving through the water of life. Perhaps that’s where, 
like Solomon, we need to know that we have something on to which to 
hold.

	The other day I came across an article about the Scottish poet, Edwin 
Muir. He was born on one of the Orkney Islands, not far from his 
mother’s birthplace. He spent his early life there, surrounded by things 
he knew – part of a rich family history. The unspoiled atmosphere of the 
farm which his father and mother worked was like Eden to him. Then, when 
he was fourteen, his father lost the farm and the whole family moved to 
Glasgow in 1901.

	Plunged into a huge city, he thought that he’d been expelled from 
Paradise. “In quick succession his father, two brothers, and his mother 
died within the space of a few years. His life as a young man was a 
depressing experience, and involved a raft of unpleasant jobs in 
factories and offices, including working in a factory that turned bones 
into charcoal. He suffered psychologically in a most destructive way, 
although perhaps the poet of later years benefited from these 
experiences as much as from his Orkney Eden.” 1

	I can’t imagine what that must have been like, but I know that people 
around here are losing farms, losing homes, losing economic resources, 
even being separated from the ones most dear to them. It’s incredibly 
lonely to feel as if one’s life is crashing down, especially if one has 
no one to whom one can share hopes, dreams AND fears. If you or I are in 
that sort of situation we are in desperate need of God’s wisdom. How do 
we act? Where shall we stay? With whom should we interact and how?

	The good news is that God doesn’t ignore any one of us; God never turns 
away from us because of what we have or have not done; God, in fact, 
seems to draw closer with every breath we take.

	The young Solomon was granted not only the gift of wisdom, but the 
ability to develop it, to see how it could form his life and benefit 
everyone. Edwin Muir was given that same gift. He was able to struggle 
through his depression which paralysed him; he was able to make some 
sort of a living, no matter how desperate it may have seemed at the 
time. And that’s where the second half of that petition of that hymn 
comes in. No matter how wise we may feel, no matter how much we may feel 
blest by God in matter of making right decisions, we need courage to be 
able to put our choices into play.

	This didn’t come easily either to Solomon or to Muir. It hasn’t come 
easily to me – and only you can decide what’s happened in your own 
lives. Life – all life – has its share of struggles, yet time and again 
I feel that I’ve been surprised by joy. I’ve found glimpses of God’s 
wisdom in my own life; I’ve discovered power and courage to face what is 
unknown, and to move on. And this is what Jesus was talking about in the 
sequence of verses continued this week, verses  in which He affirmed 
that He is the Living Bread.

	The sign of the divine life within us is shown in how we live in love, 
how we share love, how we draw others to that love. 2 To live like that 
is the gift of God. To be open to Jesus living in our lives and 
strengthening them; to be willing to accept Jesus and to follow, no 
matter where; that is a sign that God’s wisdom is with us.

	Still, it’s never easy to determine whether what we feel we should do 
is of God, a mark of wisdom, or of human vanity and selfishness. THAT’S 
where we really need to test our inclinations, to examine our 
consciousness, to see what is going on in our lives and relationships. 
Then, when our hearts and minds and souls seem to be one, then we’re 
urged by Jesus to have the courage to walk with Him.

	“In 1919, (after all his struggling, Edwin ) Muir married Willa 
Anderson, and the two moved to London. About this, Muir wrote simply ‘My 
marriage was the most fortunate event in my life’. They would later 
collaborate on highly acclaimed English translations of such writers as 
Franz Kafka, Gerhart Hauptmann, Sholem Asch, Heinrich Mann, and Hermann 
Broch.” And Muir himself wrote some twenty eight books of history, 
religion and poetry.

	When Jesus gave Himself – gives Himself – in the Bread and Wine, He 
does so not in any stingy was, but in abundance. When we receive that 
gift, then our lives become linked with His to all eternity – remember 
the words after Amy and Connor and Nathan were baptised last week: “You 
are sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s own for 
ever.” Similarly, when Solomon asked God for wisdom, the king was given 
it in abundance, not just for a few decisions, not just for the really 
big one, but for all of his life.

	We are asked to take in faith that God DOES want to bless us, and that 
God is interested in every aspect of our lives. God IS present, to help 
us wherever we may be, whatever questions we may have.

	A priest put it this way, quoting the poet. He wrote that Edwin Muir: 
“captures one dimension of our hope:

		‘And those who hide within the labyrinth
		Of their own loneliness and greatness came,
		And those entangled in their own devices,
		The silent and the garrulous liars, all
		Stepped out of their dungeons and were free.’

	“A second is known when we let God’s grace take hold of us and turn us 
to the light. A third is when we meet together in the presence of the 
transfigured man who is our God and who feeds us with the bread of 
life.” 3

	We are invited to pray, “Grant us wisdom, grant us courage”, without 
fear, and to repeat this throughout our lives. And the first step of 
wisdom is to come to the altar to be blessed once again by Jesus’ 
Presence for our daily lives.

NOTES:
  1	 
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=edwin%20muir&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CFMQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FEdwin_Muir&ei=MT8wULCrHeH5igK74YG4Bw&usg=AFQjCNGaGDq_31eVQOgZ66l4T0jR8o7WvQ

2	Paraphrased from homily by The Rt. Rev. David Charlesworth, Abbot of 
Buckfast. 15th August, 2012. Choral Evensong, BBC Radio 3

3	Peter Allan CR ,quoting Edwin Muir’s poem “The Transfiguration”  in a 
sermon for the  Sunday before Lent - 14 Feb 2010 
http://www.mirfieldcompanions.org.uk/sermon140210.htm

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