Sunday's Sermon

 

Sermon for Tenth Pentecost

        We’re a long way from last Sunday’s ‘don’t worry, be happy.”

        In today’s gospel lesson, Jesus says he’s come to ‘bring fire’ to the earth and wishes it were ‘already kindled.’

        That’s a long way from ‘don’t worry, little flock.’

        A very long way.

        But it is only 9 verses in Luke from last week’s gospel!

        I said last week that Luke’s Jesus was ‘compassion personified’. Not so today.

        Luke’s Jesus is also the most human Jesus in the four gospels. He can get angry when people don’t listen to his message or misinterpret what he is saying.

        “You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?”

        All the lessons for today are full of wrath and anger.

        In Isaiah, God destroys a vineyard God gave to his ‘beloved’.

        In the Psalm, another vineyard is destroyed by God.

        In the passage today from Hebrews, lots of horrible things happen. Listen to these few verses:

        “Others were tortured, refusing to accept release, in order to obtain a better resurrection. Others suffer mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented—of whom the world was not worthy.”

        I have problems with God in today’s readings.

        A few years ago, I wrote a manuscript about my parish priesthood called “Tend the Fire, Tell the Story, Pass the Wine”. In my life that’s what I’ve done as a priest—I tend the fire of faith, tell the story of Jesus and pass the wine of the Eucharist.

        We’ve been reading that manuscript on Wednesdays in the parish house. We just finished the last chapter called “God around the edges” in which I write my own creed.

        I’d like to share that with you now, with apologizes to those who already heard it. It expresses my personal faith and why God in today’s readings is not the one I believe in.

    CREEDO

I believe in the Edges of God.

Truly, that is my limit on the whole question of Creed.

 

I don't believe in God storming out of the clouds

and smiting me to smithereens if I am bad.

I don't believe in a God who would wake me up,

pin me to my bed and give me bleeding sores

on my palms and the top of my feet,

much less my side.

(Explain that to your general practitioner!)

I don't believe in a God who would instruct me

to slay infidels or displace peaceful people

so I can have a Motherland.

I don't believe in a God that has nothing better to do

besides visit bedrooms around the globe

uncovering (literally) illicit love.

I don't believe in a God who frets

about who wins the next election.

I don't believe in a God who believes in 'abomination'.

 

I believe in the edges of God--

the soft parts, the tender pieces--

the feathers and the fur of God.

 

I do believe in the ears of God,

which stick out—cartoon like—on the edges of God's Being.

I, myself, listen and listen

and then listen some more

for the Still, Small Voice.

I believe in God's nose—pronounced and distinctively

Jewish in my belief--

I smell trouble from time to time

and imagine God sniffs it out too.

The toenails and finger nails of God--

there is some protein I can hold onto,

if only tentatively.

 

Hair, there's something to believe in as well.

God's hair—full, luxurious, without need of jell or conditioner,

filling up the Temple, heaven, the whole universe!

I can believe in God's hair.

 

God's edges shine and blink and relect color.

God's edges are like the little brook,

flowing out of the woods beyond the tire swing,

in what used to be my grandmother's land.

God's edges are like the voices of old friends,

old lovers, people long gone but not forgotten.

God's edges are not sharp or angled.

The edges of God are well worn by practice

and prayer and forgotten possibilities

about to be remembered.

God's edges are the wrists of someone

you don't quite recall but can't ever remove from your heart.

 

God's edges are rimmed and circled

with bracelets of paradox and happenstance

and accidents with meaning.

 

God is edged with sunshine,

rainbows,

over-ripe, fallen apples, crushed beneath your feet

and the bees hovering around them.

 

God's edges hold storm clouds too--

the Storm of the Century coming fast,

tsunamis and tornadoes, spinning out of control.

 

Blood from God's hands—now there's an edge of God

to ponder, reach for, then snatch your hand away.

God bleeding is an astonishing thought.

God bleeding can help my unbelief.

 

And most, most of all,

the edges of God are God's tears.

Tears of frustration, longing, loss, deep pain,

profound joy, wonder and astonishment--

tears that heal and relieve and comfort...

and disturb the Cosmos.

 

That's what I believe in:

God's tears.

 

 

 

Time of silence to ponder God’s tears.