SERMONS
Christ Church – 22/3/09
Psalm 107, Ephesians 2
For those who wouldn’t know, throughout the period leading up to Easter (Lent), as a community we’ve been exploring the theme of “Openings”, posing the question, just what is it that encourages the human mind and heart to open up to new perspectives, or to positively and creatively grapple with new realities? An important question when you stop and think about it, given daily clashes (local/global ) of will against will, opinion against opinion, belief against belief, body against body, set behaviours against set behaviours. Much of it due to lack of openings; almost a fierce determination to continue on regardless, irrespective of hope and possibility to do and be differently.
And so to help us in our searching over the last 3 Sundays, we’ve used both ancient and new texts: the Psalms – many written over 2,500 years ago – and some contemporary poetry, creating for us, I hope, imaginative windows into another way, even another world; that being a world of renewed possibility for individuals and whole communities, the very hope of harmony day.
The psalm I read earlier goes a long way in trying to answer, just what it is that encourages creative change. For the writer, it is a profound and pressing experience of God’s steadfast or loyal love; a love that reaches out to the human spirit - often broken or bruised on life’s journey – and seeks to lift it up, ennoble it, dignify it, restore it to wholeness and openness. This is the essence of the Psalm’s praise, so strong in fact that only a song (and perhaps a dance) will be good enough to express what needs to be expressed here.
My other text for today is predictably a more contemporary poem. One I’ve read often in recent days, and one I think that well reaches across religious divides and simply speaks to a commonality of human experience. It is entitled “Grace”, perhaps having even more meaning for me because I have a daughter of the same name. It is written by Wendell Berry, a poet/farmer from mid north USA, whose understanding of life and spirit helps us also to ask our Lenten question.
The woods is shining this morning
red, gold and green, the leaves
lie on the ground, or fall,
or hang full of light in the air still.
Perfect in its rise and fall, it takes
the place it has been coming to forever.
It has not hastened here, or lagged.
See how subtly it has sought itself,
its roots passing lordly through the earth.
See how without confusion it is
all that it is, and how flawless
its grace is. Running or walking , the way
is the same. Be still. Be still.
“He moves your bones and the way is clear.”
To begin, then, to answer that question of just what is it that keeps open the mind and heart to new possibility, I think Berry’s word picture of the woods, being all that it is (without confusion or complaint), is very helpful to a modern person and modern communities. Ways of life so often fractured (frustrated) with the need to be more than we are, better than we are, even bigger and slimmer than we are (figuratively speaking). In other words, not fully at home in our own skin, playing out roles either expected by others or relentlessly demanded by ourselves; restless, driven, controlling, anxious and protective hearts, unable to be still long enough to simply be, not hastened or slow, flawless in a given grace and uniqueness of beauty.
The gift of grace is, and will be, described in many complimentary and contrastingways. Yet at its centre or soul, lies a permission giving, if not a given courage to be; a way through the confusions, the fractures, the many competingvoices, back to that original state of simplicity and authenticity. A place where genuine openings can take place.
“Be still. Be still.” Feel again. Breathe again and be moved by such giftedness because from that place of yielding, surrender, letting go, the way is clear. Paths and new directions do open up before us, often in very surprising and non-expected ways.
For all his foibles, St Paul got this message very right. “For by grace we have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift (artistry) of God.”
When there are so many religious and cultural barnacles layered over the graciousreality of God, it is admittedly very hard to fully get our head around how simple and wondrous this message is. But only in the freedom and tapped potential of one’s being can we fully give of ourselves. Not in fear and certainly not in confusion. As one wise saint said many years ago:
“Those who know they are greatly loved will love greatly.”
Friends, we are loved. We are honoured and we are gifted to be all that we can be in the grace and fullness of God.
Praise be!
Amen
