[Propertalk] Proper 9 b

Sun Jul 8 09:44:46 EDT 2012

Wonderful message, Bob! Thanks! -Bob C

"To understand all is to forgive all."  -Evelyn Waugh

________________________________
 From: "robertpmorrison at charter.net" <robertpmorrison at charter.net>
To: Propertalk <propertalk at stsams.org> 
Sent: Saturday, July 7, 2012 4:40 PM
Subject: [Propertalk] Proper 9 b

Here's what's still being reviewed for this Sunday!

God's peace,

Bob

THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY THE SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
2 SAMUEL 5:1-5, 9-10                                                            PROPER 9 B RCL
2 CORINTHIANS 12:2-10                                                                                8th JULY, 2012
MARK 6:1-13                                                     PSALM 48

    “Chippie the parakeet never saw it coming. One second he was peacefully perched in his cage. The next he was sucked in, washed up, and blown over.

    “The problems began when Chippie’s owner decided to clean Chippie’s cage with a vacuum cleaner. She removed the attachment from the end of the hose and stuck it in the cage. The phone rang, and she turned to pick it up. She'd barely said ‘hello’ when ‘ssssopp!’ Chippie got sucked in.

    “The bird’s owner gasped, put down the phone, turned off the vacuum cleaner, and opened the bag. There was Chippie - still alive, but stunned.

    “Since the bird was covered with dust, hair and all the stuff you find in a dust bag, she grabbed him and raced to the bathroom, turned on the tap, and held Chippie under the running water. Then, realizing that Chippie was soaked and shivering, she did what any compassionate bird owner would do . . . she reached for the hair dryer and blasted the pet with hot air.

    “Poor Chippie never knew what hit him.

    “A few days after the trauma, a friend who had heard about Chippie’s troubles contacted his owner to see how the bird was recovering. ‘Well,’ she replied, ‘Chippie doesn't sing much anymore - he just sits and stares.’ 1

    This morning’s Gospel passage gives us two separate stories which probably didn’t occur back to back, but make some sense together in terms of what sort of life the followers of Jesus might expect.

    We heard a few weeks back how Jesus’ family was so worked up about how He was embarrassing them. This week we read about the whole village. Everyone knew Him. That was the problem right there. They thought they could read His mind, know ahead of time exactly what He’d say and do. The problem was that they wanted Him to behave just as He had before – when He was growing up. Or maybe do what the villagers had heard that He’d done across in the next county.

    What they were doing was dulling their own imaginations. They’d lost the ability to be surprised and enchanted. They’d forgotten that everything in life changes – even one’s best friend from Sabbath School. They thought Jesus would fit their own expectations, maybe perform a few fancy tricks to amuse folk and possibly gain them some advantage. But when they discovered that that wasn’t how Jesus operated, they became like Chippie. They just sat and stared, unbelieving, uncertain of what might happen next, afraid to close their eyes in case something terrible, something really challenging might come along. And they grumbled. Did they ever grumble!

    There’s nothing wrong with offering advice, with critiquing something, even with being critical – as long as it’s done with the intention of bringing something positive to pass, and if it’s done with respect, with an open heart and mind.

    We all know about those who like to hear the sound of their own voices. We’ve been at meetings or gatherings of one sort or another where someone won’t accept that something positive might happen, because it’s not in line with what that person thinks. WE do it ourselves. That person is from such and such an area; that other person went to that “other school” forty miles down I-5; that person is married – or not married. We could go on and on, bringing up all sorts of prejudices. Anne Lamott, the author, wrote, “You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.” She’s quoted as saying her priest friend told her that, so she must be right! 2

    Was that the problem with the folk at home? They were so fixed on who Jesus had been, on how He talked, on His family life, that they couldn’t imagine Him growing into someone else. They’d heard of what had been going on in other communities, but they simply couldn’t reconcile that with the fact that He was a local boy. There were plenty of things which Jesus might have been able to help rectify. I’m sure there was no shortage of sick people, of confused people, of economically or emotionally depressed people. Yet most of the village-folk were of such a negative frame of mind that nothing could be accomplished – so everyone suffered.

    This reminds us, once again, that God never forces anything on us. We have freedom to choose how to be involved, how to use the gifts with which we’ve been blessed. We get to self-destruct, if that’s what we want to do. Of course, God keeps sending messages, bits of advice, questions that cross our minds. But we can behave in as boneheaded, as selfish, as unrelational a way as we wish. We don’t HAVE to listen.

    Imagine being asked if we wanted our arthritis cleared up; or our lung capacity improved; or our heartache and loneliness healed. Imagine being questioned about whether or not we’d like to find someone to whom you and I could open up and talk about all that gives us anxiety and trouble.

    Imagine two folk walking through your neighbourhood, smiling, talking to you in your front yard or even coming up to your front door.

    Wait – are you thinking LDS Missionaries? Jehovah’s Witnesses? What if they were disciples of Jesus? Is that what Jesus was getting at when He sent His friends off, after He’d been rebuffed, and told to be nice to folk, to try to console them, to offer them a word or action of comfort from God? And what did He mean by shaking the dust off their feet if no one listened, if people were rude, and slammed doors, or ridiculed them?

    Are we so locked in to our ways that we can’t let someone even make a suggestion? Are we so cynical that we can’t pick-up an idea, an image of Jesus from talking to someone in the next seat at a concert, or at a movie? Jesus said that it’s through interaction, it’s through sharing, that we find God’s reign being revealed. When He sent His friends out to make house calls, He didn’t say that they had to brow-beat the locals; He didn’t imply that the locals had to give up their way of thinking either. He simply invited folk to share, to try to imagine what God might possibly see in me, and you, and everyone else, and to trust that we may have to put some of our thoughts or plans on the back burner for a while in order to try to bring peace, or healing, or security to those who may be living right next door to us.

    “Speaking to the (Stanford) Class of 2012, Sister Joan Chittister drew inspiration from the Buddhist monk Tetsugen, who spent years begging for money to translate the Buddhist scriptures into Japanese, but gave the money away twice – first to build houses for the homeless after a flood, then to feed the starving after a famine.

    “‘When the scriptures were finally printed in Japanese, they were enshrined for all to see,’ she said, speaking Saturday morning in the Main Quad at the Baccalaureate ceremony, a festive celebration of thanksgiving and inspiration for the future.

    “But they will tell you to this day in Japan, she said, that when parents take their children to view the books, they tell them that the first two ‘editions’ – the new houses and the thriving people – were even more beautiful than the printed works.

    “Chittister said there was a lesson for Stanford’s graduating students in the story.

    “‘No personal passion, no private agenda, not even any religious ritual must ever be allowed to come between you and the people you serve,’ said Chittister, who is a member of the Benedictine Sisters of Erie, Pennsylvania.” 3

    There will always be storms which threaten to derail us. This past week I happened to come across a forecast map which suggests that, except for the Pacific Northwest, most of the rest of the country can expect moderate to severe drought conditions for the balance of the summer, into the Fall. What to do about this seems so unclear, but one way or another, we’ll have to respond.

    Sister Joan Chittister said, in that commencement address at Stanford, pretty much what Jesus might have said to the friends He sent out to the neighbourhood. “You are all graduating from this great university this weekend because someone has seen leadership potential in you at a time of grinding poverty and gross inequality. At a time when we have never needed leadership more, someone saw in you the possibility to be a powerful presence in the public arenas of our own time. The question is, then, what will you inspire in this world now?”

    God has seen, God KNOWS the potential that’s in each one of us, and we have done God the honour of making a commitment, of being baptised, maybe a fair number of us have been confirmed. We’ve said that we’d try to find ways to make sure that no one goes to bed crying tonight, because of hunger, or pain, or loneliness. We’ve committed to make sure that no one takes advantage of anyone else. Above all, we’ve committed to make sure that people can express their views, and work to bring renewal of life to those whom we meet.

    We’ve to learn from those in the stories told by the Gospel writer. Again, to quote Sister Joan, she talked about Stanford’s motto “The wind of freedom blows”, which should reflect exactly what we’re about as Christians. The church is called to address a world which is struggling. The church, made up of those whom Jesus sends out, the church is called to make sure that nothing should ever create “Chippies” – people who have stopped singing, people who just sit and stare.

    Yes, every last one of us may well have to face up to the equivalent of errant vacuum cleaners, and high-pressure water, and scalding blow dryers. Jesus didn’t tell anyone they’d escape from difficulties. But Jesus DID try to convince His friends that God would enable us to overcome anything, therefore we can, we MUST keep singing.

    Thinking back to that story about the Buddhist monk in Japan, I’m also brought to think about a saying that’s been floating on the internet for a week or so, and which may have originated in North Carolina, much to the consternation of some local pastors. The saying is very simple. “Don’t go to church. Be the church.” 4

    Combine these two thoughts together, then, and you might have a pretty good motto for us. “Don’t just sit and stare. SING! Don’t go to church. BE the church!”

NOTES:

1     “Humor: Sucked In, Washed Up, Blown Over” Vince Gerhardy, Calm in a Storm via Joe Parrish

2    “Traveling Mercies” by Anne Lamott. on page 22 of Bird by Bird she attributes this quote to “my priest friend Tom”. http://writingshed.wordpress.com/2010/04/17/when-god-hates-the-same-people-you-do/

3    Stanford Report, June 16, 2012 Baccalaureate speaker tells Stanford's Class of 2012, 'Rebel, rebel, rebel - for all our sakes, rebel!'
    “Answers are easy to come by – just Google them, Sister Joan Chittister told the Class of 2012 at the Baccalaureate ceremony. "No, what the world really needs from you now is the courage to ask the right questions without apology, without fear and without close-mindedness." by KATHLEEN J. SULLIVAN HTTP://NEWS.STANFORD.EDU/NEWS/2012/JUNE/BACCALAUREATE-ADDRESS-CHITTISTER-061612.HTML Prepared text at HTTP://NEWS.STANFORD.EDU/NEWS/2012/JUNE/BACCALAUREATE-TEXT-CHITTISTER-061612.HTML

4    See  http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/10918034/

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

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