Flies

I don't mind flies outside--that's their world.

 But in our house? That's a different story.

The last few days Bern has killed 9 or 10 flies and I've killed 3 or 4.

Stay out of our house, insects!

You'll meet your Maker here!

 

African Bible Study

 Today at the Wednesday group at Trinity, Milton, we used a method called African Bible Study.

The method was given to the bishops of the church by a group of African bishops.

There's an opening prayer about the Bible to 'read, mark and inwardly digest' the wisdom there.

Then you read a passage of scripture, slowly. I chose the raising of Jairus' daughter from Matthew.

Then people ponder for a while and answer a question about what phrase struck them.

Then the passage is read again from another translation and a question is asked about what occurred to them during hearing the passage.

Ponder then respond.

The passage is read a third time from yet another translation and the question is asked, "what is God telling you to be or do?"

Ponder, the respond.

Then you pray for 5 minutes for the person on your right and then saky the Lord's Prayer.

The 6 people liked it enough to be willing to try it again in a week or two.

It is an interesting process and can be done by yourself alone, reading, asking and responding.

The bear

I was almost at the last hill before getting to Litchfield this Sunday when a black bear crossed the road in front of me.

I slammed on the brakes and didn't hit it and it ran up the hill on the right side of the road.

Freaked me out!

I almost hit a bear!

I didn't tell anyone at church about it because I didn't want to jinx my trip back to Cheshire and foxes.

And it took me a day to even tell Bern.

What a weird, almost out-of-body experience.

A bear!!!

My Lord!!!

 

A sermon I want to share

October 21, 2007

 

          Her name was Eliza. She was a tall and willowy and beautiful African American woman in her early thirties when I met her. She had three children then—a boy 12, a girl 10 and another girl 8. I never met their father, but I didn’t have to—they all looked just like Eliza, from their coffee with cream colored skin, their deep set brown eyes, their tall and angular bodies and their perpetual smiles.

          When I met Eliza she walked with an obviously painful limp and her fingers had lost much of their flexibility. By the time I left her—five short years later—she was confined to her bed and her body had started to curl back into itself. She had developed Progressive Relapsing Multiple Sclerosis—the most rare form of that debilitating disease, and the most difficult to treat.

          The first year or so of my time as Vicar of St. James in Charleston, West Virginia, Eliza was able to drive and she and the children were in church every Sunday that she didn’t have extreme weakness or pain that made it impossible for her to drive. Gradually, she moved from a limp to a walker to a wheel chair and finally, took to her bed. Her hospital bed was in the kitchen of their small house so she could direct food preparation by her children.

          Only once did I ask about her husband and what she told me was this, “he left after Tina was born and my MS was finally diagnosed. Tina was four or five by then, but Charles could see what the future held. He read up on my disease and then told me he had to leave. He just wasn’t ready to grow up the way his children have.”

          Then she smiled from her bed and said, “who could blame him? I’m not bitter….”

          And she wasn’t, not at all, not a bit, not even a tiny bit. Eliza wasn’t bitter.

          And her children had ‘grown up’ faster than any child should have to mature. They weren’t bitter either, though they could see what the future held for them. Charles, Jr. and Maggie, the older two, were committed to do whatever was necessary to care for their mother and stick around until Tina was old enough to care for herself.

          It sounds like a tragic, awful story, doesn’t it? A beautiful, young woman cut down in her prime; a marriage broken by pain and suffering; children having to grow up too soon?

          And it wasn’t that at all, not at all.

          In fact, when I was down and out, when I was depressed, when I was feeling sorry for myself—that’s when I’d visit Eliza and her children.

          And they would cheer me up.

 

          “How do you feel Eliza?” I’d ask.

          She would smile that 200-watt smile of hers and say, “Oh, places hurt I didn’t know I had places…and everything is alright…. If I could just get these babies to behave….”

          Then Charles, Jr. or Maggie or Tina would shake their heads and roll their eyes—which ever of them heard her say it—and reply, unleashing a smile as bright as Eliza’s, “oh, Mama, you’re the one who won’t behave….”

 

          Oh, don’t let me paint too pretty a picture about that little family. Life was hard for the children and for Eliza. Money was tight and the duties those kids had to serve their mother were demanding, odious, often heart-breaking. But when I was with them—no matter how self-centered and distracted I was—they actually cheered me up and sent me away a better person than the one who had knocked on their door.

          “I’m just like Jacob,” Eliza once told me, “but my Angel wasn’t satisfied with leaving me with just a limp….”

 

          Eliza read the Bible a lot and what she was referring to that day was the lesson we heard from Genesis this morning.

          Jacob is running away from his brother Esau, who Jacob had betrayed, when he encounters an Angel in the night and wrestles with that Angel until day-break. Jacob demands a blessing from the Angel—which he gets in the end, along with a new name—but the Angel also damaged Jacob’s hip so that he always, there after, walked with a limp.

          Encountering God in the dark spots of our lives, in the midnights of our existence, CAN result in being blessed and given a new name…but encountering God can also give us a limp.

 

          Someone—everyone argues about who really said it—someone once said, “that which does not kill us makes us stronger.”

          Our wounds, our pains, our sufferings do not ‘automatically’ make us stronger, but, in God’s grace, they CAN.

 

          That is the gift to us from Jacob and from Eliza—by ‘our wounds’ we can be healed. Our limps can make us walk with more determination, by God’s grace. Our brokenness can, through the love of God, make us “whole”.

 

          Life is most often not consistently “kind”. Bad hips and limps and brokenness are more often the norm of living. And there is this: IF CHRIST’S WOUNDS HEAL US, SO CAN OUR OWN.

          The choice God leaves us is between “bitterness” and “wholeness”.

          Jacob and Eliza chose “wholeness” as they limped through life.

          With God’s help, that is the choice we can make.

 

          So, I invite you—I sincerely, profoundly invite you—to bring your wounds, your brokenness, your limps to this Table today. Whether those pains are physical or emotional or spiritual—bring them to this Table today.

          There is a balm in Gilead…there truly is—that much, because I knew Eliza, I can promise you. Bring your pain and what may make you ‘bitter’ to the Table today.

          And chose “wholeness” to go with your limp.

                      

 

What a joy to live here

 Much of the nation is sweltering in record heat.

It's 72 here in Cheshire at almost 7 p.m. and raining like crazy.

Cornwall Avenue is a stream and all the driveways are tributaries.

It's a mild summer in CT. And lots of rain.

I'm so glad we live here.

We do get a little smoke from Canada but not nearly as much as some parts of the country.

I love living here.

I'll be here until I die.

Which I hope is a long time from now.

The sun just poked out on the trees outside my office window.

The air conditioner is off.

Life is good.

This week's sermon

 

July 23, 2023

        You may have noticed that verses 31 to 35 were left out of today’s Gospel lesson.

        But it those verses I want to talk about. So let me read them to you.

        “He told them another parable. ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and all the birds of the air come and perch on it’s branches.’ He told them another parable, ‘the Kingdom of heaven is like the yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough.’ Jesus said all these things to the crowd in parables; he did not say anything to them without using a parable. So was fulfilled what was spoken through the prophet; ‘I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter things hidden since the creation of the world.’”

        Parables are part and parcel of Jesus’ teaching, so let me explain what a parable is.

        It comes from the Greek word ‘Para-ballein’ which means ‘throw out together’.

        So, Jesus throws out a story and with it he throws out the interpretation of the story. They go out together and if we are lucky, we can see the interpretation behind the story.

I don’t know much about seeds. Bern is the gardener in our family and our front and back yards look amazing this time of year.

But I know about yeast because for many years I baked bread.

I baked all kinds of bread—and all of it needed yeast to make it rise. So, when the woman mixed yeast into the dough, she would sit it in a warm place for 45 minutes or so, so the dough would rise and she could then make bread with it that would be fluffy and delicious.

But this I do know; a mustard tree is very big though it comes from the smallest of seeds. And I know yeast causes bread to rise and be ready to be baked.

The mustard seed and the yeast in the parables Jesus told stand for the ‘word of God’ planted in our heart and the yeast placed in our souls.

And in both cases, the Word grows and swells and we are made more powerful and more productive in our lives.

Mustard seeds and yeast make our hearts and minds more in touch with God.

That is the meaning behind the story.

The word of God gives us strength and courage and the growth we need to be God’s people in this world and to do what God wants us to do.

Imagine that we are doing God’s work here at Trinity.

We are feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, bringing peace to the afflicted and inviting those outside our world into the world of God’s grace and love.

Imagine that.

Imagine it.

Then DO IT.

Amen and Shalom.