my July 30 sermon

The Little Things (St. Andrew's, Northford)

You've heard people say, I know you have, and have probably said yourselves, "it's the little things that matter."

A mustard seed and yeast. "Little things" by any reckoning, and yet, it today's gospel lesson we learn how much indeed they matter.

Finally, after several weeks of readings, Matthew's Jesus really tells some parables! If you've been here you've heard me complaining that the 'parable' of the sower and the 'parable' of the seeds haven't been parables at all, but allegories that Jesus explained to his closest followers. An allegory is a story where everything in the story stand for something else and has to be explained.

A parable, on the other hand, as the name indicates in Greek: para-ballein--means to 'throw out together". A parable is a simple story with one 'point', one meaning and can't be explained any more than you can explain a joke. I imagine you've tried to explain a joke to someone who didn't get it. That didn't go to well, did it? Parables and jokes--people either 'get it' or they don't.

So today, Matthew's Jesus gives us two remarkable parables--the mustard seed and the leaven (or as we usually call it, 'yeast').

"Little things" that not only 'count' or 'matter', but make all the difference in the world...that reveal to us, if we 'get it', the very nature of the Kingdom of God. What could 'matter' more than that?

I went down to our spice drawer after I read this gospel earlier this week, and found a container of mustard seeds. And they are tiny! They are about a quarter of the size of a peppercorn and peppercorns are small enough. And yet Matthew's Jesus tells us they will grow into a shrub, a tree, so large that the birds of the air will nest there. And that's what the Kingdom of Heaven is like....

The Kingdom is like a tiny seed.

Then there's yeast. I used too make all our bread for several years. I don't even know why I stopped but I did. The yeast I used came in little packets that weren't nearly full. The grains of yeast wouldn't fill the palm of your hand. Yet, when mixed with several cups of flour and some water, the whole mixture would swell and expand and grow.

The Kingdom is like that. Just a little yeast leavens the whole loaf.

Little things matter.

It pains me to say it, but we live in the most divided culture in my memory. We are divided by walls of race and class and nationality and religion in ways that frighten me to the core. We have become 'tribes' not 'one nation under God'.

Maybe we need to start back at 'the little things' to find our way forward, to find a new unity.

There was a bumper sticker I don't see much anymore that says "Practice Random Acts of Kindness". That's the kind of 'little thing' I'm talking about--small kindnesses, small appreciations, small admiration's, small moments of forgiveness.

Smile at the clerk who checks you out in the grocery store. Ask the guy in the gas station how his day is going. Make eye contact with people different from you and smile. Say 'I love you' more each day. Listen to someone you disagree with rather than arguing or walking away. Nod and say hello to people on the street. Get your eyes off your smart phone and look at the people around you.

I know some people don't like 'political correctness'--but I do. It keeps people from saying things they shouldn't say. Keeping quiet is a little thing that makes a big difference in life. Saying things out loud give them a life of their own. Keeping quiet--knowing not to say it--let's inappropriate things wither away. Thank God!

And I know this: when the White House 'communications director' can give an interview with a major national publication and use language so vile and insulting that even a 12 year old should know better, 'political correctness' needs to come back from the intensive care unit it's in....I'm not even sure anymore that the satirical things said about the President should be said out loud. I laugh, but those things divide us further.

The Kingdom is like little things.

We need to get back to the 'little things' of civil and polite and mutually respectful life before we can fix the 'big things' that divide us.

We need to look at someone and whisper to ourselves, "that too is a child of God", even when we don't agree with them or look like them or even like them.

If we simply admitted that every face we see is the face of a child of God, can you even begin to imagine what a difference that would make in our nation and in the world? Such a little thing--mustard seed sized--could bring in the Kingdom in some profound way....

And our job--like the job of the mustard seed, like the job of the yeast--is to be the 'little thing' that calls forth God's Kingdom. Just that. That and nothing more. Try it for a week and see how the world begins to shift in your life....Amen

canning

I actually wish I knew how to can things.

My mother was a terrible cook but she was the queen of canning! She canned everything from beans to berries and made jelly and jam and canned that. I can still taste her canned tomatoes even though she never learned to make tomato sauce. Those canned tomatoes in Bern's hand would make a sauce worth kissing your fingers for.

All the fresh stuff this time of year reminds me of what a steamy mess our kitchen would be in late summer. My dad had a really huge garden above my Grandmaw Jones' house when I was growing up and a good sized one after I left for school and my parents moved to Princeton. A lot of folks in southern West Virginia had vegetables and a lot of those people canned stuff.

In my family nobody brought wine as a gift on a visit--the Jones' were mostly Pilgrim Holiness tee-totalers (except for Aunt Georgia, who liked a drink) and the Bradley's never bothered with beer or wine--straight to the hard stuff for them. But when people visited they would bring canned stuff as a gift.

We always had a whole cabinet full of the stuff Mom canned and people gave us. All winter we ate like it was August or September and the vines were full.

When I'm buying something canned in the store, I look to find it in glass not metal. I think stuff canned in glass is just so much better. Maybe that's because I grew up around so many Bell Jars....

(Once, when I was a teen, I ate a peach out of the bottom of a Bell Jar full of moonshine. I couldn't see straight for two days. Jars are good for lots of things....)

Just loving the cool....

I haven't been writing here much lately. Part of it is that I'm trying not to get to riled up about all the nonsense out of Washington. But part of it is that I'm just loving the cool weather.

We've slept with windows open two nights now and will tonight at well, here at the end of July. The last few days have felt like early spring or mid-fall, not deep summer.

The dog has even been willing to be outside on the deck with me for more than a few moments.

Yesterday, I was on the bed reading a book Sherlock Holmes' Daughter (I recommend it if  you like things Sherlockian) and had to get a blanket to keep from being chilly. How often does that happen in July?

Another thing I recommend, go to Youtube and search for The Marconi Group and their song/music called "Weightless". I can tell  you if you listen to the 8 minute or 10 minute version (there is a 10 hour version I've never tried) it will lower your blood pressure and slow your heart rate and make you feel like you just had a wonderful nap. Really. It was written in consultation with music therapists and designed to s l o w  y o u  d o w n .

I listen to it at least once a week and watch the video which is rather hypnotic.

Here in Trump-world we need all the good books and mood altering music we can find.

At least I do....

Sometimes I just sits...

I  used to have a poster on the wall of my office at St. Paul's in New Haven with a drawing of a rocking chair and the words: "Sometimes I sits and thinks. And sometimes I just sits...."

That's where I am tonight, just sitting, not much to say.

I could tell you about Eleanor and Tim and Mimi's visit--but I'd just bore you with proud grandfather and even prouder father and father-in-law stuff.

I could whine and complain about He who cannot be named and all the nonsense in Washington that is making the US irrelevant in many international ways and challenging the very meaning of the Constitution. But I do that enough and there's always--unfortunately--times to do that.

I could tell you about some of the amazing books I've read this week--but go to your local library and find them yourselves.

I could pontificate on how the institutional Church doesn't trust lay people enough and is entirely too 'clerical' but most of you wouldn't necessarily want to know about all that and how 'un-clerical' I've become in my retirement.....

I could write about our beloved dog, Bela, who is 12 and has, we think, doggie dementia. But I recall something about that in an earlier post and I really want to mourn for him in private right now.

The rain and the wondrous cool today after days on end of heat and humidity--I could parse that into a post. But, if you're in Connecticut you know about it and if you're somewhere where it's not 55 degrees on July 24 I don't want to make you feel bad.

Sometimes I sits and thinks and writes a post....

Tonight is one of the sometimes I just sits.....

ok, people looked at this

Half a dozen folks viewed this post today for reasons I don't know. But I remember it vividly and will share it again.

Friday, November 16, 2012

His name was Ben

I officiated at a funeral today. That's not a new experience for me. In my 21 years at St. John's in Waterbury, I averaged a tad over 40 funerals a year. All told, I'm closing in on 1000 funerals. Not the kind of achievement you set out to accomplish....Yet, I am honored and humbled each time I'm involved in a funeral, no matter the circumstances. I've told the 30+ seminarians I've supervised and mentored that the most important things they'll ever do as priests is funerals.

I mean that. And I am privileged to have been a part of so many--for one thing, I'll never say dumb shit like "he's in a better place" or "God wanted her home....". I'm reliable for not saying dumb shit because I have no words at all to say in the face of death. I just sit with the survivors, help them plan the service and hold them if they want to be held.

Ben's mother called me yesterday--we've talked a lot since Saturday when Ben died in a horrendous accident while working on the family's property in New Hampshire--and she said "I feel out of control!" I told her--which is the limit of my conversation with people who have lost someone they love like a rock, "you are out of control. You are ultimately out of control." I wondered if I had tread too near the edge, but she sighed and said, "I am out of control. I have to give up being in control."

Oh, yes, beloved, when people die there is no 'control' to be in control of. When people die, a dear friend of mine wrote over 40 years ago (where does the time go?) when a friend of hers died in Viet  Nam, "it's like a bird flying into a window on a chill morning....."

Fix that, if you can.

You can't, give it up, no control/no control/no control....

In that approaching 1000 funerals, I've never be a part of one quite like Ben's.

He was only 19 when he died. Wednesday, the day before his funeral, he would have been 20. Imagine what that day was like for his parents---no, don't, you CAN'T imagine it and you shouldn't try. You just shouldn't. You and I cannot for a moment imagine what that was like unless you too have lost a child to death. And if you have done that, don't try to imagine because it would be too painful....

Anyway, I was going to the funeral home Wednesday night to pray the prayers for a Vigil with the family. I was to be there at 4:45 but a wreck in Middletown got me redirected and I didn't get there until 5:05. When I arrived there were several hundred people in line to speak to the family. I was carrying a Book of Common Prayer, which serves as my calling card since I haven't worn a clerical collar for decade or more, so people let me cut line. I told the family it was nonsense to try to do the prayers and told them we'd meet in the morning.

The service was at Holy Trinity in Middletown, thanks to their generosity, because St. James in Higganum wouldn't have held the crowd. St. James can seat 80 or so, packed in, and nearly 400 people showed up for the funeral.

At huge funerals like this, often only a few people receiver communion. But I ran through over 350 wafers as a disc of Ben's favorite music played. That and the fact that most everyone at the rail had wet eyes if not tears running down their faces, I realized this funeral was in the top 5% of all the funerals I have done for authentic grief.

Ben's aunt, who is a pediatrician, talked about how special he was and handed out stickers that said, "WWBFD?"--what would Ben Foisie do?

I never met him, but I do think, after all I heard and was told about him, that was a reasonable question. One to ponder. He was so authentic, sweet, accepting, loving, honest--'special', indeed--that trying to live as he would have lived had he been able to--might be a superlative way to live.

Altogether, a remarkable burial office. Altogether something that made me better, stronger, kinder, more open.

Just the gift that death should give. If we are only open to the giving....

family

Growing up, I had lots of family. I had 14 Jones first cousins and 4 Bradley first cousins, plus 12 aunts and uncles and Mammaw Jones.

Having moved around like I have, I lost contact with most of my cousins---all of whom were older than me. And, as time will do, all my aunts and uncles died off, Aunt Elsie Ours, my mother's youngest sister just last year at 92 was the last to die.

I'm an only child and Bern had a brother and sister who never married or had children. So, Josh and Mimi have no first cousins. Bern's sister died and her brother, Fr. Dan, is coming to visit on Friday.

Dan was a P.hd. psychologist  who taught at Temple University and when his parents died decided he should be a Roman Catholic priest. He has a church in Wellsburg, WV, which is in that northern panhandle of the state that pokes up into Pennsylvania. He is closer to Pittsburgh than to any of the few major cities of WV.

He's never met granddaughter #4, Ellie McCartney. So Tim and Mimi and Ellie are coming up on Saturday to meet Uncle Danny.

Our tribe is small. Two children, 4 granddaughters, uncle Danny and Bern and me.

It will be good to be 'family' for a day or two.

Partner! Lordy, Lordy!

My son, Josh, today was made a partner in his law firm of Rosenberg, Martin and Greenberg, one of the largest and most prestigious firms in Baltimore. He went to Brooklyn School of Law, where he met his wife, Cathy Chen, who is a prosecutor for the City of Baltimore.

He does tax and bankruptcy law--his unit kept R,M,G above water during the recession.

I am sure he is super good at what he does. And now that is proven.

I just looked at the web page for R/M/G and saw that they have a lot of women lawyers and several lawyers of color. I've never looked before. Glad I did. Makes my feel even better about my son, The Partner.

Josh is 41 years old, 42 soon, in August. I've never really worried about him. He is frighteningly smart--always has been--and though a little loudly extroverted, a gentle and caring man.

His three daughters--Morgan and Emma (11) and Tegan (8) are brilliant and wonderful. Emma is more outgoing than her two sisters but all are remarkably friendly and kind.

Cathy Chen is beautiful and smart as well.

God, I love my kids and all that came from them, babies that they were once upon a time.

Law partner at 41--not shabby....not shabby at all.