Union Church

Sept. 20, 2009
James 3: 13 – 4:3, 7 – 8a

This week John, my husband, was reading the Fall 2009, L’Arche-Montreal newsletter.
Two things caught his attention.
One was the Saturday, September 26th., Macaroni supper, fund-raiser. Now, he loves macaroni especially the old fashion homemade varieties of his youth. Macaroni and cheese is definitely not on our healthy eating list of foods. So sitting in his office he could already taste this now forbidden fruit. He thought to himself “what a wonderful excuse…correction, what a wonderful opportunity to get macaroni back into my diet, for at least one meal, and all for a good cause.” Fortunately, the date conflicted with our Re-Union Supper and Silent Auction.

The second thing that caught his attention was the editorial.
It started with the question “Are you happy?”
Then referred to Jean Vanier’s book The Taste of Happiness.

From the L’Arche experience happiness begins with belonging. “Belonging to a family, to a group of friends, a community that accepts us and recognizes us for who we are. Inclusion in these relationships inserts us into humanity, giving us access to strong values such as sharing, respect, mutuality, friendship, forgiveness, love…. Intellectually handicapped people show us that happiness is found in relationships not in having things…. To be together is the key to happiness.”

Thinking of our scripture readings for this week I noticed how Wisdom and Happiness belong together, reinforce each other, complete each other.
The early church had James’ letter to guide them, offering them an understanding of the Risen Christ as the Wisdom from above. It is the wisdom of letting go of having things and embracing a generous life together.

The Wisdom from above is “first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy."

When we take James’ teaching seriously, we discover a wisdom which allows us to see what we have been missing, to hear what we have been tuning out, to taste and see that God is good.

Such wisdom reveals to us, what makes for true happiness.

It is about God working through us.When we take into ourselves the image of the Wisdom from above or the experience of the Risen Christ or the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we begin to see where we haven’t seen before and hear what we haven’t heard before, and taste what we haven’t tasted before.
We discover an inner light. We sense an inner resonance.
We savor an inner flavour.

The Wisdom from above is first pure – that is selfless ambition, the desire for the common good.

Lets take a moment and go inside to our experience of simply seeking the common good.

What does it look like? What does it sound like?
What does it taste like?

Second, the Wisdom from above is peaceable and gentle – that is, accepting, connecting, caring and including.

Lets take a moment and go inside to our experience of accepting, connecting, caring and including .

What does it look like? What does it sound like?
What does it taste like?

Third, the Wisdom from above is a willingness to yield – that is unselfish importance, openness to other options that help.

Lets take a moment and go inside to our experience of unselfish importance, openness to other options that help.

What does it look like? What does it sound like? What does it taste like?

Fourth, the Wisdom from above is full of mercy and good fruits – in other words, acts of kindness and forgiveness, and offers of new beginnings.

Lets take a moment and go inside to our experience of initiating acts of kindness and forgiveness, and offers of new beginnings.

What does it look like? What does it sound like? What does it taste like?

Fifth, the Wisdom from above is without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy, -- that is a fair and honest heart, that exchanges having things for a generous life together.

Lets take a moment and go inside to our experience of our fair and honest heart, that exchanges having things for a generous life together.

What does it look like? What does it sound like?
What does it taste like?

The Application for Today.
Isn’t it good to be here today:
Where Wisdom and happiness generate intensified humanity. Where we can taste and see, and hear that God is good.
Hymn # 229 God of the Sparrow

Mark 9: 30-37

I hate being hot and sweaty. I chose to be a swimmer which certainly helped growing up in the heat of Leamington, the most southernly part of Canada. So if you had asked me last year, if I would do, let alone enjoy Hot Yoga I would have never believed that the answer would be yes.

John always believed that clergy couples were an error in judgement, a failed relationship waiting to happen, mostly because they usually served the same congregation. If you had asked him in 2000 that by 2003 he would be married to another clergy person, living in Quebec and liking it, he would have scoffed at the ridiculousness of the proposition.

Things like this happen to us, don’t they?
Not all the time, but once in a while we find ourselves saying, “Who would have thought that I would do this or believe that!”

Think about one of your own unexpected sea changes.

We can see from our gospel lesson the great sea change that occurred in the disciples’ belief system.

From their arguments on the road, who would believe that they became the apostles of the early church?

From their concern over who was the greatest, who would believe that they learned within a year that the first would be made last and the last would be made first: That welcoming the least in our midst is welcoming God and God’s messiah?

A sea change in their thinking occurred.
Their beliefs evolved and grew.

What about our own?

How have our concepts of God and Jesus changed?

Last week we took some time to write down and then discuss with our table group 3 things that we know for certain about God.

This week, one of John’s parishioner’s forwarded an email response to a question concerning evolving beliefs. It is so good that I will quote it in its entirety.

Shirley Krogstad from Hendersonville, North Carolina, wrote Retired Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong: 'If you had to name one "belief" of yours that has evolved or grown the most over the last ten years, what would it be?'

Dear Shirley,
Since my whole belief system is deeply interrelated that is not an easy question to answer. I like the story told about an elderly bishop who remarked, "The older I get, the more deeply I believe but the less beliefs I have." That is exactly what I feel.

To answer your question more specifically, however, I believe it would be the way I think about God.

God is no longer a person, a being or an entity to me.
God is rather a presence in whom, to use words attributed to St. Paul, "I live and move and have my being."

The "old man in the sky" was the first image to go, then the heavenly judge who kept record books and finally the father figure who desired praise and whose mercy I implored.

The invasive, external heavenly deity faded and new images began to intrude themselves into my consciousness.

The interesting thing to me was that while these old images were fading, the God intensity within me remained steady and steadfast.

Today, I am a God-intoxicated person, but my definition of God is anything but crisp and well defined. I struggle to find words big enough to use when I try to talk about God.

God to me is now more of an experience of transcendence, or perhaps the source of life, the source of love and the ground of all being. An experience to me is vastly different from a being who might be described externally.

People hear these concepts sometimes as simply words. I hear them, however as a call to transcend all human limits and all human boundaries. God to me is a call to live fully, to love wastefully and to be all that I can be.

A redefined Jesus still stands at the center of my God experience.

He is not the one sent to be my savior, redeemer or rescuer. Jesus is not to God what Clark Kent is to Superman, a deity masquerading as a human being.

He is rather a God presence through whom I am empowered to be open to the life, love and being that flows through me.

I now call myself a mystic because in my understanding of God I have gone beyond words into a kind of wordless wonder, awe and mystery.

This is not where I was a decade ago. I doubt if it will be where I am a decade from now, but it is where I am today and it represents the evolving, growing frontier of where I was ten years ago.

Thanks for asking.
John Shelby Spong, retired Episcopal Bishop of New Jersey

Application for Today
What concepts of God and Jesus have you let go of?
What new experiences of God do we do you now entertain?
Hymn # 278 In the Quiet Curve of Evening