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.
