[Propertalk] Homily for Proper 20 B - Draft -- Part 3 of 3

[Joe Parrish]

Forwarded: Homily for Proper 20 B - Draft -- Part 3 of 3



Forwarded:Part 3 of 3




From
robertpmorrison robertpmorrison at charter.net




THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY                            
THE TWENTIETH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
PROVERBS 31:10-31                                                                                                                                
PROPER 20 B
JAMES 3:13 -4:3, 7-8a                                                                                                               
20th SEPTEMBER, 2015
MARK 9:30-37              



            Mydaughter Kirsten wrote last week, “A woman approached our car earlier this eveningasking would I help her? I asked what she was needing. She asked for money,stating that she and her daughter hadn’t eaten all day... no breakfast, lunch,nothing. I let her know that I didn’t have any cash to help her out, and droveaway (we had been at a stop sign). 
            “Joshua, from the back seat,asks, ‘Mommy, why didn’t you give her the plums? They didn't eat all day, and Ihope they don’'t get really sick. They need food to be strong like us’. My heart broke with hurt and with pride.I’d forgotten about the plums in the seat next to me, so it hadn’t occurred tooffer them, but Joshua remembered. And he realized we are blessed ... we havefood, healthy food at that, regularly, and it nourishes us. ‘Why can't theyhave that, too, Mommy? Next time, we will give her our plums.’
            “Iam humbled and strengthened by this young person every day. I have much tolearn from him.” 3
For the past two weeks, BAC membersand leaders of the congregation have been taking part in classes to waken us towhat it means to ensure that this is a “Safe Church”.
What DOES it mean to be a safe church? Surely it’s a gathering ofChristians who insist that here everyone can find refuge, regardless of howthey look, how they act, how they live. A safe church, surely, is a placewhere, regardless of any of the factors others may use about us and others,those who come through the doors will be given encouragement, not put down, notignored, not shunned. 
A little more than a hundred yearsago, Francis Thompson wrote, “Know you what it is to be a child? It is to besomething very different from the man of today. It is to have a spirit yetstreaming from the waters of baptism; it is to believe in love, to believe inloveliness, to believe in belief; it is to be so little that the elves canreach to whisper in your ear; it is to turn pumpkins into coaches, and miceinto horses, lowness into loftiness, and nothing into everything, for eachchild has its fairy godmother in its soul; it is to live in a nutshell and tocount yourself the king of infinite space; it is

   ‘To see a world in a grain of sand,
      And a Heaven in a wild flower,
      Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
      And eternity in an hour;’

            it is to know not as yet thatyou are under sentence of life, nor petition that it be commuted into death.” 4
            It is about being human.
 
NOTES:
 
[1]           AndreaThornton, talking about “Local Woman in a Barley Field” illustration foundat  http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/diglib-fulldisplay.pl?SID=20150913808380126&code=ACT&RC=54158&Row=1
 
2           Andrea Thornton, Op. cit. 
 
3           Kirsten King on Facebook, 10thSeptember, 2015 
 
4           Francis Thompson   1859-1907 from the essay “Shelley” in the Dublin Review, July1908 inner quote from William Blake, quoted in “Atthe Edge of the Enclosure. Soulwork Toward Sunday: Liturgical Year as MysticalJourney”.  Proper 20 b September 20,2015 Suzanne Guthrie  http://www.edgeofenclosure.org/proper20b.html
 


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