This week's sermon

LENT I 3/6/2022

 

       I walked for many days,

      Past witches that eat grandmothers knitting booties

      As if they were collecting a debt.

      Then, in the middle of the desert, I found the well….

 

      In the first Century, the Judean Wilderness was called Je-SHIM-mon, which means, literally, ‘The Devastation.’  The wilderness of Judea is an area 35 miles by  25 miles—almost 1000 square miles of devastation. From Jerusalem to the Dead Sea, the desert drops down 1200 feet to the lowest point on the face of the earth.

      The Judean desert is one of the most rocky, empty, inhospitable places you could imagine. It looks more like the Moon than it looks like Connecticut. There is an otherworldliness to that place. The heat of the arid afternoon is brutal, but not surprising—what is surprising is how cold it gets when the sun falls out of the sky like a ball rolling off a table.

      And though rain seldom falls in that place, when rain comes it comes in cloudbursts that flood the wadi’s with such force that human beings can be knocked to the ground and drowned in the desert.

 

    I walked many days

      Past witches that eat grandmothers knitting booties

      As if they were collecting a debt.

      Then, in the middle of the desert, I found the well….

 

      According to Luke’s gospel, after Jesus’ baptism, the Spirit led him into the Devastation—into the Judean wilderness—to be tempted by the devil.

      The Gospels do not refer to Satan as “the Evil One” or “the Enemy”: instead, he calls him ‘o di-ab-oy-os, which means the slanderer…the one who tells lies.  Jesus’ “temptation” is the challenge of slander, of lies, of the “un-true.”

      In English, we tend to think of temptation as something “drawing us into sin or evil.”  But the Greek word is peir-a-zein, which is more akin to “testing” or “trying.”  Peir-a-zein does not refer to a purely negative action. “To be tested” contains the possibility of learning and growing…the chance of finding unknown strength.

      Then, in the middle of the desert, I found the well.

      It bubbled up and down like a litter of cats

      And there was water, and I drank,

      And there was water, and I drank.

 

      In the midst of the devastation of the desert, The Slanderer tempted Jesus with three lies.

      The first lie was this: personal longings and needs are more important than patience and endurance.

      Jesus was hungry and the devil dared him to turn stones into bread. But Jesus knew it was a lie and grew stronger.

      The second lie was this: Power and Control will win hearts.

      To worship Satan and rule the world would have let Jesus “control” the people of the world. Jesus knew it was a lie and learned faithfulness and powerlessness.

      The third lie was this: quick results and instant success are better that wrestling with reality.

      To leap from the top of the Temple and be unharmed would cause the Jews to acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah. Jesus knew it was a lie and learned wisdom.

      Then, in the middle of the desert, I found the well.

      It bubbled up and down like a litter of cats

      And there was water, and I drank.

      And there was water, and I drank.

      Then the well spoke to me…..

 

 

      Jesus’ time in the Wilderness is a metaphor for our own journey, our own “testing” and trial and temptation.

      The desert, the Wilderness, the Devastation—it is not ‘OUT THERE” anywhere.  We are not called by Lent into a place “out there….”

      The desert of Lent is a metaphor for the inner journey we are called to make—the wilderness places of our soul we are called to visit and be tested by and drink from.  And the Wilderness is where the Well of God can be found.

      The Light dwells beyond our inner darkness. Life and Hope can only be discovered if we will walk in the Shadow of Death and Hopelessness. There are no short-cuts, no easy ways, no simple answers.

      The Slanderer within us whispers lies. And the way to Truth is through un-Truth.  The Well of God, the Water of Life is in the desert places of our hearts.

      Lent calls us—as individuals and as a community—to self-reflection and prayer. That way is the Wilderness Way. And it is the only Way to Freedom and Life.

      There is no Holy Week without Lent. There is not Easter without Good Friday.

      We live too much on the surface of things. Lent calls us down deep—down into the unconscious life, into the bone and the marrow of life, into the deepest Darkness where the light will truly Shine, into the driest desert where the Well of God bubbles “up and down like a litter of cats….” Where there is water and where the Well speaks to us.

      Then the well spoke to me.

      It said: Abundance is scooped from abundance,

      Yet abundance remains.

      Then I knew.

 

      Abundance is scooped from abundance, yet abundance remains.

     

      In the desert of Lent, we will know….we will know…..

      

 

 

 

Did I ever post this?

BASEBALL

          My father played baseball in a rag-tag country league that covered three or four counties in south-eastern West Virginia and south-western Virginia. Actually, it is a misnomer to call what my father played in a ‘league’, even a ‘rag-tag’ one. It was more like a network of young men from scattered farm communities who knew each other from logging jobs, country fairs and cattle sales. Each of those young men would go back to their community and fire up enough enthusiasm to schedule a two Sunday double header, home and away, during the summer. They would play on rough hewn ball fields beside local schools or on make-shift diamonds in the middle of someone’s cow field. They would assemble early, strutting their farm grown stuff, the 1930’s version of ‘macho’, drinking lots of half-fermented homemade moonshine, playing a little baseball that would end up in a fight.

          The next Sunday they’d do it on the other team’s field.

          I know the names where those rough farmers grew up. There are places like Waiteville (where my father grew up), Paint Branch, Rock Camp, Peterstown, Greenville and Wayside. Names I know from my father and because, in my boyhood, I have been there.  And in all those places, according to my father, there were raw, rough, harsh, sunburned farm boys, itching for sunny weekends, home brew and baseball. Not to mention, it was a good way to meet girls from other towns.

Those girls would come in their home-made dresses or summer things from Montgomery Ward, full of freckles and giggles, hiding their faces behind their hands, but their eyes were sharp, focused, sizing up the Farm Boys that weren’t boringly familiar. The girls would sit in the shade of the schoolhouse or under trees in the outfield of the pastures, always distant, always shaded, remote from the action but fully involved. Dreaming dreams, I imagine, that Farm Girls have always dreamed.

I have disappointed my father in many ways, but no two as profound as my not playing baseball beyond backyards and two years of little league and my not being a Republican. All the other disappointments and betrayals pale beside those two. And now, in the last of the ninth of his life, with a Republican in the White House who even confounds my father, in the last months before the intricacies and failures of his own mind and body began to be his only confusion, it my not playing baseball that causes me the most guilt.

He never understood why I quit playing baseball. I was ‘promising’. I played first base with a grace and effortlessness that still surprises me when I pass ball with my son. I was, in the language of the game, ‘a glove’. And in batting practice, or in softball, I scattered hits to all fields and showed occasional power to right-center. But when the game began, when Ray Smith was on the mound for Gary and I was at the plate, people went for sodas. “All field, no bat” was the scouting report when I was 12 and 13. But everyone thought I would ‘come around’. People who had seen me in practice knew it was just a matter of time and timing and all those sharply hit balls just outside the right field line would be landing in the alley and I’d be standing on second base before anyone knew what had happened. I had one year left of little league and people in Anawalt were counting on me to develop into a hitter. I’d back second next year, right behind Danny Taylor, who led the league in hitting and was a constant threat to steal, even with the strict, no-lead-off rules. Danny would get on more than half the time and the worried pichehers would serve me some fat ones. Danny would score from first on all those doubles into right center. The Anawalt Comets would, at long last be winners.

Then, with one game left in the 1960 season and the Comets securely in second place, preparing for the playoffs, I quit. I walked off the field after turning a brilliant, unassisted double play that ended a 16-3 rout of the Elbert Aces, in which I even had two hits, and, never explaining, turned in my uniform.

There was one out and a Subric boy, Bobby, I think, on first. And Leo Kroll, the only decent hitter Elbert had, was batting. He hit left handed and I was guarding the bag, holding the runner on. Jason Butler was pitching, which showed the disgust in which we held the Aces—Jason only pitched against Elbert, allowing us to save Danny Taylor or Bobbly LaFon to pitch against first-place Gary. Leo dried his hands, spit on them, dried them again. We were ahead by 13 runs and most of the parents were anxious to go home to TV. Benny Braham’s mother stated hooting at Leo, questioning his manhood (or at least his boyhood). Benny scraped the dirt around third base, hanging his head as he always did when his mother embarrassed him, which was often. Leo stepped in, took some practice swings, ignored Betty Braham’s insults and hit Jason’s pitiful fast ball like a shot about a foot off the ground a yard to the right of first base.

(But before all that, I had been listening to our coach, standing about ten feet to the left of first base, talking with a friend from out of town. I have great hearing and often overhear conversations never meant for me—and this one certainly wasn’t! Jimmie N. our coach was telling his friend about the player’s on our team. He called me ‘four-eyes’ because I wore glasses and pointed out the obvious, I couldn’t hit worth a “God damn”. He said Jason, pitching, was a “fat assed bastard” and that Benny Braham had a ‘whore’ for a mother—and he said, “I know that first hand!” He said Danny Taylor was an ‘ass-hole’ and a ‘cunt’. He said Billie Bridgfield in center “likes to pat butt too much, he’s a queer, I know it”. On and on he went, saying horrible things about each of us. This was a man I had given two summers of my life to. A man I looked up to and trusted. And no one on either side of my family used the language he used for anything—much less to talk about 12 and 13 year old boys who idolized him.)

I don’t remember thinking about what to do when Leo hit that line-drive. Obviously, I didn’t think at all, but threw my body to the right, leaving my feet as I had done so many times playing catch with my Uncle Del in my Uncle Russell’s yard, and caught the ball in the air. The runner was already half-way to second base, not even looking back. Nevertheless, I pulled myself to my knees and dived back to first, slapping my Ferris Fain mitt on the base for the game ending double play.

The crowd, whether delighted by my fielding or merely glad to be able to go home (or a little of both) cheered and cheered. Someone picked me up and suddenly the arms of my friends were lifting me up on Benny Braham’s and Jason Butler’s shoulders. I was carried off the field for the first and last time in my life. They put me down into the waiting arms of my Daddy and he carried me, all 112 pounds of me, almost to the car. Half-way home down the winding mountain roads, I told him I was quitting baseball.

There was so noise save the whizzing of the wheels on the cooling pavement and the cracking of my father’s heart. He said nothing. We rode in silence. When we got home neither of us told my mother about my two Texas-league singles, my run scored, my miraculous double play. My father went outside to the coal house for drink or two of bourbon and I folded my jersey, #7, just like Mickey Mantle, for the last time.

 

 

The State of the Union

 In my opinion, Biden did a great job last night.

He spoke to Ukraine, Covid and inflation with no apologies.

He was clear, concise and truthful about every thing.

He has worked hard and long over the past year to undo much of what the former President did.

But the advantage in congress is so small, he hasn't been able to pass needed legislation--like the Build back Better bill.

Pray for him and for Ukraine and for all that needs to be done to make this country 'well' again.

He needs your prayers.

As do we all.

Mitt Romney

Sen. Mitt Romney, who I like as a person but don't agree with in politics, said on CNN, that "Republicans who support Putin are almost treasonous."

He included the former president in that statement.

What good intentions that took.

He's right.

Putin is a dictator and we, as Americans--Republican, Democrat or Independent--support freedom, like the democratic republic of Ukraine.

More Republicans need to stand up to Fox News and the former president and support democracies around the world.

What has happened--and is still happening in Ukraine is an attack on human freedom like nothing we've seen since WW II.

Stand up for Ukraine.

Speak out against Putin.

Side with what is right and free.

 

No church today

I wasn't scheduled for church today.

My friend, Steve. was there to do morning prayer.

Someone asked my recently, "how come you're still serving a church when you're retired.

I mumbled something about still having something to give.

Truth is, if I weren't serving a church I'm not sure I'd even go to church!

I'm what's know in CT as a 'PTPIC'.

Which translates as a "part-time Priest in charge".

In that role I only do three Sunday's a month. Today was my off week for February.

And no, I didn't go to church.

Slept in until nearly 9.

Have eaten two good meals.

About to have a glass of white wine.

So, a good day even without church.

 

Cold again

 Yesterday was two inches of snow and then sleet that made everything very slippery.

Today has been cold all day, below freezing.

The cold is back after one great day.

I know I've told you I hate the cold.

I wear three long sleeve layers and my toboggan inside!

Then when I go out I put on a scarf and a heavy winter coat and gloves.

And I'm still cold.

Bern puts two extra blankets on my side of the bed.

She knows how cold I get.

I've tried to remember if I've always been cold. I lived 18 years, until I went to college, in an apartment with a coal stove in the living room and an electric heater in my bedroom.

When I left for college, my parents moved to a much larger town and bought a house (for cash!) with central heating.

I resented that.

So, I guess I always have been cold.

Oh, Spring, I pray for you to come....