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| SERMONS Sean Gilbert –28/3/10 I think I made an important discovery this week, that is, I’m no gardener, at least not a very attentive one. You see, I thought I was doing a good job all through summer keeping my roses alive with regular watering in a very thirsty patch of ground. Little did I know (or notice) until this week, when after the death of one rose bush and the near death experience of another – I know, how can a rose bush die – that not only was the soil thirsty due to the looming presence of a bottlebrush tree, it was incredibly non-porous. When I put a spade into the ground so as to transplant my wilting rose, I noticed my liberal watering had gone down only about an inch if that. No wonder, I thought, no wonder... At the beginning of Holy Week, we might do well to consider just how porous or non-porous the humus of our own soul is. And particularly in relation to the spirit and message of these coming days, just how open we are to their potentially transformative and growing ways. For often I see in myself a willingness to let it all seep in only just below the surface of things, the thirsty roots of soul and spirit still dry and yearning for the nutrients of God’s love. One of the early fathers of the church suggested that every aspect of God’s inner stirrings (within each and every one of us) was about the shaping and producing of humility. This is the great work of Spirit. It’s an interesting thought; The very stuff of our lives, the successes and failures, the gains and losses, the hidden and known, the joys and despairs, the commonplace and the extraordinary, all these very human experiences helping to create (if we are so willing) an openness of heart, a spaciousness of mind and a deepening of compassion. Each virtue reliant on porous humus – an open and believing humanity. Thankfully this radical way, this near foolish disposition is modelled for us in the person of Jesus, the “author and pioneer of our faith,” writes the author of the letter to the Hebrews. The metaphorical seed willing to die for the sake of greater and fuller life - The mythical God Incarnate who out of such deep and rich humility descends even unto the depths of human hell, so as to gather us, reconcile us, and then ascend with us, sings the hymn in Philippians. Humility framed in these positive and poetic terms is nothing more or less, than the seed bed of genuine redeeming love. It is a teachability, a conscious laying aside of prejudice and presumption. It is an openness to another’s experience, however different or challenging it may be. It is a graciousness and spaciousness for creative living in community. It is an undying belief in the goodness of another, however veiled that may be at times. Obviously, yet still remarkably, this Jesus story is really our unfolding story. His choices to love are our choices to love. His choices to forgive and let go are our choices to forgive and let go. His deep desire to serve and not to be served is our choice to serve and not be served. And the story goes on... The one thing I know about Holy Week and the Christian life in general is that there are no easy short cuts. Surface deep faith, if not resistance to grace, produces little of lasting substance. What is made easier for us though is the wonder and beauty and tragedy of this Passion story, is the attraction of the One who enacts it. His life and being has the capacity and power to break something open inside of us, and once broken open again, like compacted soil, love and beauty can have its healing, nourishing way. The poet David Whyte says it well in a piece called ‘Faith’: I want to write about faith, Well, may this new Holy Week and the filling moon open us to a deeper and fuller faith experience wherein we allow the gift of love greater access into our lives, wherein we stay still long enough and remain prayerful enough amidst the Easter comings and goings, to feel and know the presence of the One who bids us to follow him on the demanding paths of humility and self-giving love for the world. Let us take a few moments for prayer and reflection. | |||||||||||||
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about the way the moon rises
over cold snow, night after night, 
slowly becoming that last curving and impossible 
sliver of light before the final darkness. 
I refuse it even the smallest entry.
like a new moon, slender and barely open, 
be the first prayer that opens me to faith.