[Propertalk] Proper 28 a

[robertpmorrison at charter.net]

Here's the first draft. Our convention ended at noon.

Dinner and re-reading will now follow! 8 - )

Bob


THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY  	          THE TWENTY-THIRD 
SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
JUDGES 4:1-7			    			                                       PROPER 28 A
1THESSALONIANS  5:1-11  				   	                     16th NOVEMBER, 2014
MATTHEW 25:14-30							                       PSALM123

	“The (British) government has denied that it has run out of sensible 
policy ideas after announcing that it is to use parliamentary time 
before the next election to repeal the Law of Averages.

	“‘It’s not even a proper law,’ said Prime Minister David Cameron, 
pointing out the average value of the deficit can vary depending on 
whether the person quoting the number is using the mean, modal or median 
value. ‘Obviously George would like to keep his options open but we’re 
really getting stuck for things to do in Parliament while we wait for 
the next election,’ continued the PM today adding ‘plus he makes the 
numbers up anyway’.

	“Critics have questioned whether repealing this law is appropriate. ‘It 
still seems to have some purpose,’ said one critic while suggesting that 
the law of sod would be a better target for Parliamentary time. Nick 
Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister agrees. ‘I feel I’ve had more than my 
fair share of that legislation,’ he said casting a knowing glace at his 
colleague Vince Cable.

	“‘This has been tried before, in the Sixties, when they tried to repeal 
Murphy’s Law,’ said a legal historian, ‘and that kicked off a shit load 
of pain in Northern Island for years,’ he reminded a press conference 
today. MPs commenting on the attempt to repeal the Law of Averages said 
that the odds of it happening were stacked against it happening. ‘If 
it’s fifty-fifty I’ll be surprised,’ said one MP.” 1

	I doubt if anyone would give good odds on the Israelites messing up 
again. I mean, that’s what they DO. Turn your back for a second and then 
back again and they’re getting into fights, or ignoring one another and 
their neighbours, or they’re doing nothing when they should be doing 
something. I suppose they did get a lot right, but everyone sits up to 
notice when they mess up.

The good news is that when they get into trouble, they know to whom to 
call for help. But why do they wait till they’re in such a jam before 
they ask God for guidance and help? Why do they not make a habit of 
having a conversation with God first thing in the morning and last thing 
at night as a matter of course? THAT’S how you get to know who the Other 
is. You wouldn’t dream of treating your spouse, or your children, or 
your parents like that, would you? Why, then, do this with God?

Fortunately, there are those lone voices, those saints of whom we sang a 
couple of weeks ago, those folk on the bus, or the train, or at tea; the 
ones in the line at the bank, or in the health care provider’s office; 
even at a table or the kitchen down the hall; fortunately, there are 
those folk who’re willing to listen, and willing to speak – to offer 
comfort, to give advice, above all, to walk with you and me as we try to 
find our ways out of the holes we’ve been digging for so long.

I wonder how many folk trusted Deborah, knew that she’d be fair, that 
she’d listen to as many sides of a question as there were before 
offering advice. But Deborah sat there, in the place where a prophetic 
ombudsperson would be, waiting, taking in all who passed by and what the 
mood of the people was. 	Fortunately, she knew whom to call, whom to 
invite, whom to command, in order to bring relief. Not for her any 
messing with the law of averages. She saw through the bureaucracy. She 
sensed how God’s Wisdom would guide the people. She knew the laws that 
needed to be observed and those which were merely pretexts for taking 
advantage of other people’s weaknesses and disabilities.

It’s always hard to challenge the status quo, especially when those with 
the power were benefitting from the political upheaval. When folk were 
being shuffled back and forth across regional borders, it was often 
difficult to be heard, especially if the questioning, beseeching, 
complaining voice came from those with little power to help themselves.

But are not such leaders banking on the law of averages? They hope that 
their political clout, their economic leverage, will enable them to 
muscle out of the way those who might contradict them, those who might 
tarnish their prestige, those who might get in the way their profits.

So often people – leaders and led alike – so often, people figure that 
the law of averages will enable them to survive just about anything, 
that, eventually, things will fall into place, with little damage.

What a terrible way to live, though – to assume that if even one has to 
suffer – to lose home, or friends, or health, or possibly life – what a 
terrible way to live, to assume that it doesn’t much matter who gets 
hurt, or what happens to the country, as long as the bank books of fate 
balance themselves out every now and again.

So the Hebrew people plugged along, living in a land which they shared 
with the Canaanites, always looking over their shoulders, wondering who 
was in charge, what might happen next, living their lives based on fate 
seeking an average existence, not, apparently, paying a whole lot of 
attention to what it was that had provided a benchmark to Moses and 
Aaron – never mind Abraham, or even the more recent figure of Joshua.

One might have expected this sort of behaviour then, as today, when 
things were prosperous, but the strange thing is that this is how folk 
lived three thousand years ago too, the leaders, at any rate, not 
seeming to worry about what might happen because of their  own agendas 
or their self-absorption. God, they believed, was more like a “Get out 
of Jail” card, to be kept in one’s back pocket for those rare occasions 
when things were really starting to go wrong.

You might call this “burying God”, sticking God out of sight and mind, 
possibly catching a hint of the power of God, the love of God, the 
possibilities of life with God, but not wanting to bother God.

God, God’s love, Gods power to uphold , God’s desire that we should find 
fulfilment in love, and patience, and hope – these are incredible 
treasures, but if we bury them, afraid to look at them, to test their 
value, to risk putting them out there among those we know and those we 
don’t know; if we don’t circulate God’s relationship and  gifts to us; 
if we settle for a second best, even an “average” existence, whatever 
that is, then we may never discover the incredible beauty that lies in 
the gifts which God shares with us.

	Why were the Hebrew people so afraid to engage the Canaanites where 
they lived? Why did they not try to discover ways in which they could 
cooperate, share their talents, explore life together? They all lived in 
that hill country, facing the same crop harvests and failure. Why did 
they not talk about their rich experiences of the mercy and joy of God 
who’d brought their ancestors across from the Tigris and Euphrates 
valleys, and into Egypt, and back again to where they were living at 
that very moment? Were they blinkered in their ability to see the 
treasure of God in their midst, the God who called them special, and 
made them a light to all the nations? And what about us?

The other day, some comedic theologian posted some signs of a luke-warm 
churches, saying that one of the favoutite hymns of such congregations 
is “Above average is thy faithfulness”. That’s not the God whom you and 
I know. We know the God who drops treasures of relationships and 
responsibilities into our laps time and again. You and I have discovered 
the seeming contradiction of living joyfully with these gifts and, at 
the same time, learning that we can take a chance in sharing these with 
everyone else.

One of my favourite passages of Walt Whitman’s poetry challenges me – 
challenges us all :
		Darest thou now O soul,
		Walk out with me toward the unknown region,
		Where neither ground is for the feet nor any path
			to follow? 2

	This sort of challenge, to live life to its fullest, to find confidence 
walking with God into places where we’ve never been before, or by going 
farther along the path we may have started some time ago; this sort of 
challenge is, no doubt, not particularly easy. It may give us some 
pause, wondering whether or not we’ll lose what we have.

	Whitman went on:
		No map there, nor guide,
		Nor voice sounding, nor touch of human hand,
		Nor face with blooming flesh, nor lips, nor eyes,
			are in that land.

	So often we DON’T know what will happen. So often we’re faced with the 
choice of playing things safe, of being timid in what we say and do. 
None of us knows exactly what will happen if we do such and such. The 
temptation to be average then becomes so strong. But that deprives both 
ourselves and everyone else of what might be something wonderful, 
something beautiful for God. We may feel inclined to feel that each of 
us, by ourselves surely can’t make that much of a difference. But that’s 
not how Jesus saw things.

	Organist and musicologist, Paul Jacobs, describing the music of Bach 
and talking about the way the different lines of music work with and 
against one another in expressing the composer’s ideas,  said in a 
lecture, “The music of Johann Sebastian Bach sounds as if the salvation 
of the whole world hangs upon every note.”  3 Without even one note, the 
whole piece will sound different, and may not be as fulfilling, as 
beautiful a tapestry of sound, as it is in the way the composer has 
given to each the responsibility to lead towards a marvelous conclusion, 
with many questions and opportunities along the way.

	It’s a mathematical impossibility, of course, to say, as Garrison 
Keillor does, that “all the children (in his fictional town) are above 
average.” Mathematical, yes, but NOT a theological, not a spiritual, not 
a practical impossibility. In Jesus’ eyes we all have that blazing 
treasure which is love, which is compassion, which is hope, which is the 
display of God’s reign in our very midst, right here in Albany.

	We HAVE to live a life of risk, then, because we know that Jesus 
accompanies us, that the Spirit will guide and encourage us, because, as 
Whitman concluded,
		Then we burst forth, we float,
		In Time and Space O soul, prepared for them,
		Equal, equipt at last, (O joy! O fruit of all!) them to fulfil O soul.

	Maybe the British Government, as personified in that sardonic story, is 
exactly right. Maybe we DO need to get rid of the thought of living 
according to the Law of Averages. Maybe we ought to see how frequently 
we can extend far beyond that, and where our goal as Jesus’ friends 
should lead us.
	You know, I think this congregation – every one of us – IS really 
pretty exceptional. We all have our foibles. We all have our 
difficulties. Wemay not get out of bed every morning dying to find some 
way in which to take a risk with our faith, to push the limits of our 
life with Jesus. But we’re not slouches either. So what are the odds of 
everyone turning in a pledge card, showing solid commitment to the 
ministry of this congregation?

	Pretty good, I’d bet. WAY more than average – whatever that might be! 
And only you and the Treasurer will know! And God. And God is cheering 
already.

NOTES:

1 	“Law of Averages to be repealed” by Throngsman Posted: Nov 8th, 2014 
by Guest 
http://www.newsbiscuit.com/2014/11/08/law-of-averages-to-be-repealed/

2	http://www.vanderbilt.edu/chronopod/nowpoems.pdf

3	http://www.wqxr.org/#!/story/wqxr-bach-organ-marathon/

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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