| Sermon for Sunday, May 29, 2005 Everyday SacredBy Rev. Cindy Bates |
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Scripture: Psalm 118: This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. Matthew 6:25-34
25 ‘Therefore I tell you, do not
worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or
about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and
the body more than clothing? At our staff meeting on Tuesday, I confessed to my colleagues that I thought preaching on Memorial Day weekend can have some challenges. I have discovered that given one’s geographical background there are different expectations of what this Memorial Day observance is about. For instance, when I was in ministry in Indianapolis, Sunday of Memorial Day was when they ran the Indianapolis 500 and that particular Sunday was known as “Race Day.” I can assure you that there were always more folks in the stands that day than in the pews. The running of “The 500” always caused church attendance to plummet. Even some of the preachers found their way to the track. Growing up in a small town in Michigan, Sunday of Memorial Day weekend was divided between going to church and going to the cemetery. It was an odd sort of mixture of celebrating life and remembering those who had died, especially those who had died in the military. The whole weekend was a rather strange mix of parades and picnics, 21 gun salutes and solemn speeches. (Sometime, perhaps you who have grown up here in Colorado can share some of your Memorial Day remembrances with me.) If a sermon preached on this weekend acknowledges this holiday at all, what are we acknowledging? The observance has been around since shortly after the end of the Civil War when it was called Decoration Day. Persons wanted to do something to honor those who had died in the war, so they went to the cemetery to decorate the graves of those who had lost their life fighting for their country. But then it evolved into being more than a patriotic observance, and in many parts of the country graves are decorated for all who have died. I suspect that someone from my family will go this weekend, to that place where my parents are buried, and put a flower or some symbol of remembrance there. Whatever your thoughts are this holiday weekend, how does this observance have meaning in light of your faith? As I have reflected on this question this week, I keep coming back to a phrase that I try to live by: “Everyday, sacred!” How can I live my life, in the midst of life and death, in the midst of pain and celebration and treat each day as if it were a holy, sacred gift? The psalmist has said, “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” We all know, that in a literal sense, that is easier said than done. Some days we have to look pretty hard to find those things to “rejoice in” and “be glad” about! Jesus had much to say about how we spend our days. We heard some of those instructions in this morning’s scripture: “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear.” (Try telling that to your teenager!) And he goes on to say….”strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. So, do not worry about tomorrow.” (Anyone here have trouble with that one?) Jesus seemed to know us pretty well. We do get so caught up in the “things” of life, the worries and the problems and the details of life that it leaves us with little time or space to acknowledge God in the midst of it all. I am grateful to my 5-year-old niece, Claire, who has given me an image for living life in this way. Last summer my four brothers and I had a family reunion at my oldest brother’s home on a lake in Michigan. My brother Lee had his large pontoon boat out giving some of the younger kids a turn at sitting in the front seat with him so they could steer the boat for a while. When it was Claire’s turn she piloted the boat like she does everything in life, with much enthusiasm, energy and gusto! After just a few moments behind the wheel, she turned to her passengers, some young enough to still be in diapers and some of us, well, not so young, and said with great abandonment, “Babies, hang on to your diapers. We are about to hit a wave.” Now, when I am having a particularly challenging day, I hear Claire’s warning and somehow it helps. Reality tells us that there are days that are very difficult. Life can be very difficult. How do we deal with the perplexities, the everydayness of our lives and see it as sacred? How do we not compartmentalize our life so there is a split between what is holy and what is ordinary, where God is and where we are? “The spiritual life is, at root, a matter of seeing,” John Shea, a contemporary Catholic theologian reminds us. “It is all of life seen from a certain perspective. It is waking, sleeping, dreaming, eating, drinking, working, loving, relaxing, recreating, walking, sitting, standing, breathing….and so the spiritual life is simply life wherever and whatever, seen from the vantage point of spirit.” Jesus believed it was possible to live life having that perspective, that awareness that God is always in our midst. Wayne Muller in his book, Sabbath, says it this way: “All of Jesus' teaching seems to hinge on this singular truth concerning the nature of life: It is all right. Do not worry about tomorrow. I have come that you might have life abundantly. Be not afraid. Over and over, in parable, story and example, he insists that regardless how it goes for us, we are cared for, we are safe, we are all right. There is a light of the world, a kingdom of heaven inside us that will bear us up, regardless of our sorrow, fear or loss. Do not wait to enjoy the harvest of your life; you are already blessed. The kingdom of God is already here. It is within you and among you.” Our Monday Noon Book Group is reading Karen Armstrong’s autobiography, The Spiral Staircase. At the age of 17, she entered a convent because she wanted to find God. She thought that if she removed herself from the world and immersed herself into a structured religious life she could embrace the sacredness of life and find happiness. Seven years later, worn out from the rigid and isolating structure from her particular convent, she found it necessary to leave. She says, “I had not left the convent because we had to do public penance but because I had failed to find God and had never come within shouting distance of that complete self-surrender which, the great spiritual writers declared, was essential for those who wished to enter the divine presence.” What is it about our human striving that makes it so hard to experience the divine, to simply live our lives acknowledging God in our midst? A few weeks ago I had the privilege of being with the 4th and 5th grade fellowship to help them understand and experience the labyrinth. Again, I was reminded of the wisdom of children and their ability to be open to experiences of God. We talked about the labyrinth being an ancient tool to help us pray, to help us understand that life is like following a path and finding our way. Before walking it, I also explained to them that we needed to take off our shoes, first from a practical standpoint so the canvas doesn’t get dirty, but maybe even more importantly, I told them that like Moses at the burning bush when he was in God’s presence he was told to take off his shoes because he was on holy ground. All the shoes immediately came off. They were ready! How I wish we, as adults could be that ready to experience what is holy! Many of us suffer from short-erm memory loss. Maybe we need some reminders. I think I have told some of you before about the Old Spice shaving mug that sits near the sink in my oldest brother’s bathroom. It was my father’s. Dad died of cancer when he was only 59. My oldest brother is now 66. My brother says he keeps that mug near to remind him how precious life is and how each day is a gift. I think it makes for a pretty good way for him to begin his day. Christy Boyle shared with the staff that she has a good reminder of God’s presence each day as she comes to work. She comes into the parking lot but instead of parking her car, she swoops around the outer edge so she can get the best view of the mountains. She says it is like taking a mini Sabbath time. She sees those mountains and she is very much aware of God’s awesome creation, God’s presence in her life, before she actually maneuvers her car into a parking spot. Ordinary objects…simple moments...but powerful reminders of the sacredness in each moment. What helps you to remember? I was listening to NPR the other evening. It was a program featuring a panel of scientists and physicists talking about science and religion. As Harvey pointed out so well in his sermon last week, this is a timely subject, so I was particularly interested in what these participants had to say. Most of them agreed that one does not have to reject faith in God to believe in a scientific principle like evolution. In fact, many of the scientists affirmed that their study and research actually confirmed their belief in God. However, one physicist, who declared himself an atheist, remarked he would much prefer a world where human beings would grow out of their need for this attraction to religion. I thought that was an interesting statement, to grow out of our need for religion. Did he mean grow out of our need for God? It made me smile in that I realized I have spent my life wanting people to grasp and understand and grow into the need for God in life. Can you imagine a world where persons have outgrown their need for God? This week I have been reading Molly Wolf’s book, White China: Finding the Divine in the Everyday. Her humor and her down to earth brand of “God-Talk” reminds me of a Canadian version of Anne Lamott. In today’s Words for Meditation on the front of your bulletin, she expresses what I believe is our innate need for God in our life. “Once we have the scent of God, the smell of the living water, nothing else will quite do. Not that our pleasure in other things is diminished---quite the contrary. Delighting in God means delighting all the more deeply in God’s creation, and in creation’s creations from the glory of grass snakes to the arc of the night sky. The pleasure we’ve been willing to put aside in the interests of finding that certain something---those pleasures we get back, all the happier.” What if we lived each of our days not looking for God but acknowledging that God has already showed up? How would that change how we looked at our circumstances, at our relationships, at the sacredness of each day? Christian journalist Malcolm Muggeridge says it this way: “Every happening great and small is a parable whereby God speaks to us, and the art of life is to get the message.” Can we grasp that in our ordinary days...God shows up to say I am right here. Slow down. Take a breath. Be still and know that I am God. This is the Day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.
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