The Measuring Stick

Sermon: October 12, 1997

My nephew Kevin married his childhood sweetheart the previous day and the family was in town, filling the first three pews for this sermon. I took the opportunity to speak to my love and respect for my father, Glen, my mother-in-law, Ettie, my brother Bob, and my son Julian.

Happy New Year!!

With the sunset last evening came the end of Yom Kippur, and the end of the High Holy Days following the Jewish New Year -- Rosh Hashanah. Gentiles may not notice the turning of the page of the Jewish calendar, as it is a good deal quieter than the wild rumpus that marks the turning of the page in the Gregorian calendar.

Why is Rosh Hashanah so much quieter, so much more contemplative, than the Gregorian New Year? During the ten days of repentance between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, Jews undergo a time of contemplation and study. It is a time for people to think back on the year, identify those whom we have wronged, and seek out their forgiveness. It is also a time to forgive others their wrongs against you.

Jesus Christ -- that completely devout Jew -- describes precisely this part of the atonement process of Rosh Hashanah in the book of Mark (11:25):

“And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against any one; so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.”

The introspection of Rosh Hashanah goes beyond this, however. It is a time to ask a broader question -- am I all that I can be?

I will ask that you take a moment here, now, to ask that question. Please close your eyes. Take three deep, slow breaths to settle your mind and heart.

Now, ask this:

“Am I all that I can be? Am I all that God intends me to be?”

Please open your eyes.

Am I all that I can be?

The task we are about is much like that contemplated by Peter Senge, a renowned management guru. In his book, The Fifth Discipline, he builds this image. Imagine two hands, one above the other, connected to each other by a rubber band. The upper hand represents our vision of what is possible. The lower hand represents an assessment of my current reality. Notice that the force of the rubber band tends to pull these together. The farther apart our hands, the more tension we experience, and the more we feel that we must resolve the stress of the separation of these hands.

Sometimes we are not even aware of this stress. We go through our days, vaguely aware of ourselves as a living possibility, and vaguely aware of our limitations. Only at some unconscious level do we notice the gulf between our possibility and our reality. The stress of that gulf is simply another of the unidentified stresses and disappointments that so characterize our time. We know the gap, but do not acknowledge it, so it steals into our hearts like a thief and robs us of our capacity for joy. We feel a vague, dull ache, so we take an aspirin, or pour a drink, or watch a mindless situation comedy -- anything but recognize this longing and pain in our hearts.

The introspection of Rosh Hashanah brings this whole process -- both hands and the rubber band -- out of the fog and into the clear, bright view of the noon-time sun. Let’s see what a little fresh air and sunlight can do for this vague heartache.

Even in the light of day, we can foul up this evaluation.

First, we can move this lower hand -- our current reality -- up with a lie. We simply lie to ourselves about what is. We can construct this lie in dozens of different ways. One popular way is to take refuge in the rules:
“I work hard. I recycle. I pay my taxes. I am faithful to my spouse. I go to church regularly. I obey the law.” And so on. Then, with our list of rules with which we have complied, we build an image of ourselves. The longer the list, the better, at least for sustaining the lie.

A second way we artificially move this hand upward is by minimizing our impact in the world. I simply tell myself that the world is so grand and I am so insignificant, that I cannot have any real impact, any real meaning. I am powerless. It is not worth the time and effort needed to examine my current reality. My reality is not worth a close look.

Just as we can close the gap by moving the lower hand up with a lie, so, too, can we move this upper hand downward with lies. I can say that people -- all people, including myself -- are no darn good. We can do no better than this. We are so flawed, that there is no upper hand, no vision of what is possible that is distinct from what is. People don’t change. I am all that I can be, darn it, and don’t try to suggest otherwise.

Or how about this lie: God gave all the gifts to other people. “When they passed out the brains, or the caring, or the talent, I was out to lunch.”

Here’s one: “I was born 2 centuries too late, or too early. My gifts are for different circumstances, different times, than these.”

On and on these lies go, denying the vision, denying the possibility that I am a Child of God, graced with gifts and opportunities to make a difference, to have an impact, to glorify the Creator, to fulfill my promise.

The problem is, our hearts know better, just as our hearts know our current state regardless of the honesty of our assessment.

So, let’s say we take a deep breath and decide to honestly tackle the questions of Rosh Hashanah: Am I all that I can be? Am I all that God has intended for me?

All of us must answer this question, “no.” If Christ himself, as he does in the 18th chapter of Luke, must decline to be called “good”, then who among us can say that we are all that we can be? Who among us can say there is no higher possibility for us?

But it is not enough to answer this question “no.” That is too easy, and it offers us nothing by way of closing the gap. We must go on to ask, “in what ways do I fall short of my promise?”

Both Senge and Christ suggest the same strategy -- focus your attention on the upper hand, the standard. Keep it firmly fixed in your mind. If you do that, and keep an accurate view of your current reality, the natural tension created by the gap will provide the impetus needed to close that same gap. We need do little more than that.

What, then, is that standard? What does this upper hand look like?

We find the answer in today’s scripture reading. Christ gives two clues about this standard: “love the Lord our God” and “love your neighbor.”

But the message of Christ about what this upper hand looks like is not simply the admonition to love God and your neighbor. It is in the life of Christ himself. In Christ, we have an opportunity to see what it is to, as a human being, take all of God’s gifts and express them, moment by moment, in one loving act after another.

The danger of setting Christ up as our measuring stick, though, is that he can seem a bit distant. If you live in the late 20th Century, his time is distant. If you have no gift of public speaking, his ministry is distant. If you are a woman, his gender is distant.

What we need, then, is a way to translate the life-lesson of Christ into our own lives, somehow using the commandments to love God and love my neighbor as a guide?

I’d like to suggest a three-step process. First, listen closely to these words of Christ, and take them into your heart: “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid. Nor do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

So, step one is, know that you are the Light of the World.

Step two: take an inventory of God’s gifts to you. Obviously, look at what you can do, and look at what you love to do. These are, however, only some of your gifts. In each moment, the entire context of your life is a gift. By this I mean, “where am I, who is here with me, what is going on around me?” God gifted Christ not only with a crystal-clear knowledge of his own divine nature and a gift for teaching and healing, but also with a moment in time, a people immersed in a devotion to One God, and a particular historical context against which he could make his points about forgiveness, love, and compassion. Even more specifically, God gifted Christ with a Roman centurion in one moment, a leper in the next, an adulteress and an angry crowd in the next. Each of these moments was a gift, an opportunity to show us all what it is like to be the Light of the World.

Finally, step three: Ask, in each moment, what does it mean to be the Light of the World, to love God and your neighbor with all your might, if you happen to have this set of talents and loves in this context? What does it mean to have Christ’s heart, but at this moment, with these gifts of talent and history?

Let me show you how this works. Say, for example, instead of an itinerant Jewish preacher and healer, I am a Jew in Auschwitz in 1944 with an extraordinary understanding of the mind and the ability to write? What does it mean to set your lamp of love on a hill? For Victor Frankl, it meant writing a landmark book on finding meaning in life and giving thousands of readers and patients invaluable new tools for coping with life’s most tragic circumstances.

Or say that I am a man with lifelong dedication to family. I have a son facing the agony and shame of divorce, a son who fears his family will see him as flawed as he sees himself, and in a particular moment that son calls and tells me, with a shaking voice, that he and his wife are splitting. In that moment, what does it mean to have Christ’s heart, but in Glen’s body in 1983?

It means you say, I love you, son, no matter what.

Say, for example, I am a young mother in the early 1960s, making ends meet by working a switchboard in a Ramada Inn. I am blessed with an ear for music, a passion for opera and theater, and an 8-year-old daughter who likes music. In that moment, what does it mean to have God’s heart, but in Ettie’s body in 1963?

It means that, despite my financial worries, I figure out a way to take my 8-year old daughter into Manhattan and into Lincoln Center as often as I can.

Say I am a nuclear physicist and an ability to make accessible the incomprehensible world of quarks and mesons. My dear 6-year-old nephew asks me what salt is. What does it mean to be a Beacon of Love in that moment, to have Christ’s heart in Bob’s body?

It means that I take the time and effort to let that little boy see a glimpse of the magic of God’s universe that has enchanted me since I was his age.

Anybody can -- and should -- do this. Each of us can ask, does it mean to have Christ’s loving heart, with these talents, a this time in history, with these parents, and this family, in this moment?

With that question, we can get a clearer view of that upper hand, that vision of our possibility.

With this new, clearer vision of the promise that we are, and an understanding of what we have been when we do not fulfill that promise, this tension is right out in the open. It is only when we do this that we can make this tension work for us instead of against us.

Look what must happen over time if I keep my attention firmly on this possibility and keep this tension between “what is” and “what could be” out in the open. “What is” must begin to close the gap. Little by little -- moment by moment -- we will find ourselves relieving that tension, not through self-deception, cynicism, or self-medication, but by choosing -- moment by moment -- to love.

In each moment, to love.

That is the call of Rosh Hashanah.

That is the invitation of Christ.

That is the wish of our Divine Creator.

Be Reassured, and Surrender

Sermon: October 11, 1998

A little girl kneels by the side of her bed, tears streaming down her face. “God, please make my Daddy well.”

A teenage boy, sitting in the back of church, head bent, asks, “Please, Lord, let me understand how a loving God can allow all the suffering that there is in this world.”

A 43-year-old man, unemployed for the first time in his life, asks for guidance to his next job.

A 79-year-old widow, alone in her home for the first time in more than a half-century, asks simply, “what’s next, Lord?”

Prayer.

No matter where you turn in the spiritual world, someone is encouraging us to pray. Let’s take a quick look around the Bible, beginning with the book of Genesis. The early chapters of this opening book of the Old Testament are filled with conversations between Man and God. God does most of the talking in these early chapters. He explains the rules of Eden to Adam and Eve. He explains the consequences of rule-breaking to the first few generations. He teaches Noah how to build an ark, and instructs him on how to make a living on this earth. He lays out the terms of the old covenant.

But it is not until Abram that we see anything that begins to resemble what we might think of as prayer. And, wouldn’t you know it, this first prayer is an attempt to strike a bargain with the Almighty God. God has just told Abram that, in exchange for Abram’s rejection of the offerings of the King of Sodom, God will protect and reward Abram. Abram says, in essence, “let’s be specific, God: the reward I want is a son and some land.”

This, then, becomes a model for prayer in the Judeo-Christian tradition: asking God for what we want. Or, maybe, if we are really feeling full of ourselves, we negotiate: “I’ll do this, if You’ll give me that.”

As we see, this tradition of prayer as solicitation or negotiation is very old, indeed. Old ways die hard in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Pray alone

Let’s fast-forward to the New Testament. In the gospel, the first thing that strikes us about Jesus’ approach to prayer is that it is a solitary act, a private moment with God. Both in his instructions on prayer and in how he himself prayed, it is a quiet, private act. He says:

When you pray, go into your inner room and shut the door and pray in secret to your Father.

We see this solitary notion of prayer in action after Herod’s murder of John the Baptist. When Jesus heard of the death of his cousin and spiritual brother, “he withdrew . . . in a boat to a lonely place apart.”[1] The crowd follows, he feeds and heals them, then retreats again: “he went up into the hills by himself to pray.”[2]

Even the spare words of the Gospel paint a picture of a grief-stricken Jesus. We easily can imagine that, in John’s inevitable murder, he sees the foreshadowing of his own inevitable end. His sorrow over the murdered blends with his sorrow over the murderers, which in turn combines perhaps with a bit of fear of his own coming torture. So he turns to prayer to restore his own strength.

Again, in the Garden of Gesthemane, he retreats from his followers, and prays alone to his Father.

Pray alone.

Be Reassured

Once we are alone with our Father, what do we say? Let’s listen:

And in your prayers, don’t talk on and on, as the Gentiles do; for they think that unless they use many words they won’t be heard. Don’t be like them, for your Father knows what you need even before you ask him.[3]

Let’s stop there for a moment. Your Father knows what you need before you ask him. In one, radical phrase, Jesus turns Abram’s paradigm on its head: it does not matter what you ask for, because God knows what you need.

Abu Yazid al-Bistami echoed this notion when he said, “for thirty years I used to say, ‘Do this’ and ‘Give that’; but when I reached the first stage of wisdom, I said, ‘O God, be mine and do whatever You want.’”[4]

Put another way by Ramana Maharshi, “When you pray for God’s grace, you are like someone standing neck-deep in water and yet crying for water. It is like saying that someone neck-deep in water feels thirsty, or that a fish in water feels thirsty, or that water feels thirsty.”

This seems to be an important theme of our Teacher’s view of prayer: be reassured, God’s grace, God’s gifts, are already yours. He knows what you need, and they are yours.

Be reassured.

Surrender

There is another aspect of prayer, according to Jesus. Surrender.

We see this in the Lord’s Prayer:

May your kingdom come,
May your will be done,

We also see it in Gesthemane. On the eve of his own execution, a grieving and fearful Jesus gathers his strength through prayer. What does he say? Let’s listen:

My Father, all things are possible for you. Take this cup from me. Nevertheless, not what I want, but what you want.[5]

Not what I want, but what You want.

To Jesus, then, prayer was a simple affirmation of the supremacy of God’s will. Its purpose is to focus my mind on the meaninglessness of my own egocentric desires, and the supremacy of my Creator’s will. Such surrender to the will of God promises to restore and strengthen me, even in my times of greatest sorrow.

Surrender.

Participate in the Gift

But there is more to the lesson on prayer.

Give us this day our daily bread;
And forgive us our wrongs,
As we forgive those who have wronged us.
And do not lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.[6]

So, we are to hand to God three requests: Feed me today, forgive my wrongs, and keep me from evil.

What is going on here, though? In one breath, Jesus says it does not matter what I ask for. In the next breath, he teaches me what to ask for. It makes no sense whatsoever.

Worse yet, the idea of surrender to God’s will sounds like an invitation to give up. What keeps this notion of reassurance and surrender from turning into fatalism, que sera, sera, whatever will be, will be? What keeps us from turning this into “don’t worry, be happy, give up,” from turning a blind eye to the troubles of our neighbors and shrugging – “it’s God’s will”?

How about this: What if prayer is meant for that aspect of God’s ears that are my ears – that part of me that is Divine. Steven Mitchell says of this part of the Lord’s Prayer: “Give us what nourishes our spirit; give us not what we want, but what we need. In fact, we always do receive exactly what we need though we don’t always realize it. This prayer makes us participants in the gift.”

Participants in the gift.

We are participants in the gift.

When we pray, we are speaking to the Almighty God, our Father, our Creator, who lives in our hearts and works through our hands. This is not Zeus, or Hera, living on some distant mountain in central Greece. This is not god out there, but God in here. We have a role to play in the doing of God’s work in this, the Kingdom of Heaven. But to play that role, we have to drop our narrow wishes, and surrender to the broader love of God – the universal, unconditional, endlessly giving love. A love, Jesus says, of our God and all our neighbors, including our enemies.

These requests in our prayer, then, are a call to ourselves, to our Divine Self, to take responsibility for our daily bread, our willingness to forgive, and our resistance to unloving behavior.

In a nutshell, in our prayer, we are to participate in the gift.

Participate in the gift.

So, there we have it. Jesus, the great Simplifier, boils prayer down to a few things:

Pray privately.

Be reassured that God knows what you need.

Surrender your heart to God’s will.

Participate in God’s gift-giving.

Sounds easy enough in the abstract: in prayer, pray privately, be reassured, surrender, and participate in the gift.

We all know, though, it is not so easy in practice. To the little girl whose daddy is gravely ill: pray privately, be reassured that God is with you, surrender to God’s will, and participate in God’s love by loving your daddy with all your heart.

To the teenage boy who looks at the sea of homeless brothers and sisters, humanity’s gruesome record of genocide, the endless horror of war: pray, be reassured, surrender, and participate.

To the middle-aged unemployed man: pray, be reassured, surrender, and participate.

To the new widow, pray, be reassured, surrender, and participate.

To the 33-year-old teacher, son of a carpenter, facing the most horrific torture and death known to man: pray, be reassured, surrender, and participate.

To each of us, in our times of uncertainty, grief, confusion, and fear: pray, be reassured, surrender, and participate.

Pray. Be reassured. Surrender. Participate

Sounds very, very hard to me.

I’d better do it every day.

---

[1] Matthew 14:13.

[2] Matthew 14:22.

[3] The Gospel According to Jesus, Ch.5; Matthew 6:7-8.

[4] Mitchell, S. (1991). The gospel according to Jesus. New York: Harpercollins. P. 176.

[5] Gospel According to Jesus, Ch. 13.

[6] Matthew 6: 9-13; The Gospel According to Jesus, Ch. 5.

In every sunrise . . .

In Every Sunrise Sleeps the Sunset . . .

Sermon: August 3, 1997

“To every thing there is a season," wrote the author of Ecclesiastes. While summer brings some things common to most of us -- heat, humidity, time off from work, and more time with family -- for me summer is a time to retreat with my wife and two children to the beaches of South Carolina. The last couple of years, it has also meant at least one solo walk on the beach to listen to the ocean’s guidance on what to say from this pulpit.

This year I took that walk on the last morning of our week there. It was like all last mornings at the beach, a sweet melancholy stroll to say good-bye and try in vain to glue into my brain the joy of that glorious view of sand, sea, and sky. Seldom is the impermanence of our earthly existence so palpable as when I bid farewell to the beach.

This year I even noticed the sadness of our departure on the day we arrived at the beach. Isn’t that rich -- I was experiencing my departure in the midst of my arrival! Ridiculous, don’t you think? It could be worse. Buddhist monk and best-selling author Thich Nhat Hanh has spoken about a group of Zen monks who start each day by reminding themselves that “everybody that is dear to me is of the nature to change, and to die.” And you thought your alarm clock was a harsh way to start your day. Good morning! Everybody I hold dear to me will die. How are you today?

I’ll return in a few minutes to why one would even think such thoughts at the beginning of a vacation, or at the dawn of a new day. For the moment I just want to hold up this question for your consideration:

If in every sunrise sleeps the sunset, in every Friday night, Monday morning, in every birth, death, what am I to do? What am I to do?

As I stared at the ocean, I thought about the brevity of my own life and the seeming insignificance of even the greatest human contribution in the face of the vast inevitability of our ultimate return to the ocean. Even the beach I was standing on would disappear in a couple of years. Even the vast and seemingly immortal ocean will, in a few billion years, be boiled off the surface of the planet as the sun begins to expand and devour first Mercury, then Venus. Then, as the sun will continue to expand, our Earth will first char, then disappear into the swollen, red star that will itself be in the first stages of its own death throes.

And, in one of a hundred billion galaxies, each populated by a hundred billion stars, who will notice the death of this rather unremarkable star on the edge of one spiral of this rather unremarkable galaxy?

In the midst of that kind of Universe, what am I to do? What am I to do?

How many of you have had this kind of thought and turned away from it, calling it “morbid” or “unproductive.” “No good can come from that kind of thinking,” one might reasonably say.

So what are we to do? What are we to do? What am I to do?

I give up.

Really, I mean it. I give up.

Frankly, there are a lot of us who have said, “I give up.” But the beauty and curse of the English language is its flexibility: those three words can mean different things to different people. For example, when some people say, “I give up,” they mean, “I don’t have a clue.” “I don’t know.” And then use that ignorance as an excuse to push these troubling questions aside, turn up the volume on the TV, and shut down a little more. The questions themselves cause too much pain and fear, and ignorance is their refuge from that pain and fear. “What I don’t understand, I won’t think about, and what I don’t think about can’t hurt me.” Has anyone you know done this? When was the last time you did it?

A slight variant on that approach is to have “I give up” mean “I am utterly helpless, so what’s the point?” For these folks, the experience is not confusion so much as the apparent knowledge that life is meaningless and there is nothing I can do about it. While a slightly different flavor, this is a close relative of the ignorance escape hatch from the fear of meaninglessness.

But neither of these is what I’m talking about when I say, “I give up.” I mean, “I surrender.” “I surrender.” Surrender to whom, or what? Not to the hopelessness, or to the meaninglessness, or to the ignorance.

No, I mean surrender to God.

But what does that mean, “surrender to God”?

I think part of it means opening up our grasping, clasping hands. The obvious and most talked about aspect of this clinging relates to our tendency to cling to our material possessions. Certainly, Christ and most other holy people are clear about their stand on our relationship to our possessions. We must let go. But it goes beyond that. Let’s take my walk on the beach the other day. I have no doubt my heart was clinging to that beach with all its might. If I had verbalized my heart’s prayer in that moment it would have sounded like “O God let me glue the salty smell of this air, the feeling of sea mist on my skin, the sound of the gentle waves lapping at the shore, and this glorious vision of ocean, beach, and palm tree, firmly in my brain so that I experience it even after I leave, even after I sit back down at my desk on Monday morning.”

I did not own that beach, yet I clung to it like a three-year-old to a toy. “Mine!” I protested. “Mine!” So it’s not just the ownership of treasure that Christ speaks of in Matthew when he says: “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal. . . .” Notice that it is not the ownership of the treasure, but its location, that’s the problem. And I don’t take him literally when he says “earth”. I don’t think Mars is much safer. Or Alpha Centauri. The thieves are there, too. They can and will steal every one of the sextillion or so stars in our Universe. There is no place safe from the thieves. Or should I say thief.

The thief is time. The thief is time.

The thief is time?

Well, at one level, that seems quite obvious. Of course the thief is time. But what can we do about that? We can’t stop time.

Frankly, I’m pretty sure I don’t want to stop time. I don’t want time to end with me as far behind in my work and my chores as I am today. Time offers me the only hope I have of ever catching up. Time offers me the only hope I have of ever playing guitar better. Or of becoming a more proficient painter. Or of finishing school. Or of seeing my children grow into adults.

But how do we keep time from stealing what we treasure? The answer sounds like it should be obvious: Do not treasure that which time steals. Let me say it again: Do not treasure that which time steals. That’s the message of Christ. This involves a shift from what I call a mortal relationship to time to a divine relationship to time.

Let me show you what I mean. Here’s the mortal relationship to time. There is a point in time coming up in a few seconds . . . it’s about 15 seconds away . . . here it comes . . . 10 seconds . . . five, four, three, two, one . . .oops, there it goes. Gone for ever. Oh, man, I was looking forward to that moment. Couldn’t wait for it to get here. Now it’s gone. The thief took it.

In a sense, it’s a bit like I’ve always imagined what watching the Daytona 500 car race is like. Here comes Dale Earnhardt. He’ll be here in a couple of seconds. I can hear him. Whoosh! There he goes. Hmm. That’s it? This explains why I have never been to the Daytona 500. That doesn’t sound like much fun.

Sounds a bit ridiculous, this mortal relationship to time. But it sounds a bit familiar. You hear this mortal relationship to time most graphically on Mondays and, at least in my office, Thursdays. On Mondays, the elevator conversation sounds like, “Nice weekend, but it was WAAAY too short.” On Thursdays, people get a gleam in their eyes: “Only a couple more days, and then I’m outta here. Off to the beach, to the mountains, to home.” Then Friday, some people aren’t even really there. They are firmly planted in Saturday already. Don’t even try to tell them it’s a workday. They’re already happy that it’s the weekend, they are so absent from Friday.

Those same people, you know, are pretty down on Sunday night. Ridiculous. A bit like a tearful good-bye to the beach.

What, then, is the divine relationship to time? We’ve heard it many, many times right out of Christ’s mouth in the Gospel according to Matthew:

“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day’s own trouble be sufficient for the day.”

Let’s see how this works in real life. I’m still focused upon a moment in time, but it’s the one I am experiencing right now. This one. I’ve got it right here. Hasn’t gone anywhere. It’s still here. I keep it in my pocket.

To carry the Daytona analogy, I am Dale Earnhardt. In the car. It doesn’t go anywhere compared to where I am. It is right here all the time.

This is the Divine relationship to time.

So, now what was Christ saying about treasure? After he admonished us not to lay up for ourselves treasure on earth, he says “lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

So perhaps this Divine relationship to time -- the “I’m Dale Earnhardt in the car” approach to life -- is heaven itself. Heaven, then, is not up there in the sky, where physicists tell us that the stars are as transitory as the sands of the Carolina beaches. No, heaven is right here, right now.

Heaven is right here, right now.

You’ve got to be kidding. Just last night I was telling the little boy who lives across the street from us about this notion that heaven is not a place good people go when they die, but is where we are right now if we only recognized it. His look of incredulity was priceless. “Where?” he asked. “In the air? In your dining room?”

Christ told his disciples: “The Kingdom of Heaven is in your midst.” Heaven is not last weekend. Or next Friday night. Or your last trip to the beach. Or your next trip to the mountains.

It is now. To be attentive to this moment, to place your treasure, your heart, in this moment, is to surrender to God.

This is no small surrender. Who here is ready to give up the distinction between “good moment” and “bad moment”? Weekends and vacations at the beach have more good moments per hour than weekdays, according to most. Are you ready to come back from vacation and say to your colleagues, “I enjoyed myself thoroughly, and I’m thrilled to be here this Monday morning riding this elevator. My in-box is two feet tall, and I am thrilled for the opportunity to work on it.”

Are you ready to sit in traffic, destined to be late for your appointment, and surrender yourself to God and live this moment? Are you ready to take your portable moment of time with you in times of pain as well as joy? Because, you see, this portable moment of time passes through both times of pain and times of joy.

Well, that is asking a lot. I do treasure my judgments about good moments and bad moments. When I think about them, my judgments about moments are a bit presumptuous, given that God created both good and bad moments. “Nice work with that moment, Lord, but you could have done better with that one over there. If you had just made it more like this other moment. . . .”

These judgments of ours are very precious, yet Christ is quite firm about giving them up. He even warns about treasuring beach homes, again, in Matthew’s gospel:

“Every one who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house upon the sand; and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell; and great was the fall of it.”

No, He is quite clear -- value the transient moment and what you value will surely perish. Treasure the only moment you have, this one right here, and you are already in the kingdom of heaven. “Whoever seeks to gain his life will lose it,” Christ taught, “but whoever loses his life will preserve it.”

And what do we gain through this surrender of our lives to God? What is the value of heaven? Very simply, we gain everything. Though we have nothing, Paul said, we possess everything. We gain inestimable wealth, but only when we let go of it.

So, returning to the monks who daily remind themselves that all those whom they love will die, you can start to see why I might want to start my day this way. To shift my attention from transitory, doomed, earth to heaven. But not some distant heaven in another time and another place. This one, through which I am walking right now, the heaven I carry with me, if I would only notice.

To Start to Paint

Blank canvas,
bleak,
forboding.

Speaks.

"Dare not dip brush into water
Dare not mix pigment with thinner
Dare not even draw
thin
pencil
lines
upon me, seeking to tame your own wildness

with careful thought."

Yet, I approach the white desert,
the Sahara of my
brush.

Afraid.

Yet certain,
more certain than the canvas,
that pencil,
brush
paint
thinner
water
will find its way here.

Here,

where my spirit speaks more clearly, sometimes,
than anywhere,
except, perhaps,
face-to-face with Love.

But this is not about that, this Love.
Not about conflictuncertaintyfearlustangerneedcravingjuice
juice
juice -- juiciness of Love. . .

This is
about gesso
and horsehair
and a substance known as acryllic.

Acryllic Love.

Tom Goddard
May 13, 2005

Love My Who?

Sermon: January 26, 1997

Do you have any enemies? How about you? Or you? I’m not talking about abstractions. I’m talking about people you know. Is any of you bold enough to admit to having an enemy? By a show of hands, who has no enemies? Interesting. No enemies, for the most part. At least none that we’ll admit to.

Thinking about enemies makes me think about lists. Most of us remember when the most powerful political figure in the world compiled an enemies list. Whew! Think of that! An enemies list.

Anyway, let’s drop enemies for a minute and think about other kinds of list-making. There is a management technique in which the manager must place each person in his or her department on a single list in rank order of his or her value to the company. The rater may not equivocate or give ties -- each person is placed above or below everybody else. The final product is a list.

Without debating the merits of such a list, I invite you to think for a minute about making such a list of everybody you have ever known personally. We know too many people to do the whole list right now, but think for a minute about your “top five” -- the five people you prefer to everybody else, or who mean the most to you, or with whom you would rather spend time. I’m not so concerned about your criteria, so long as you can start to compile the top of that list.

Close your eyes for a minute, and think of 2 or 3 people from the top of your list. Bring their pictures to your mind. Whisper their names out loud. Notice your feelings. Anybody care to share your feelings? How about warmth? An urge to smile? Tenderness? Love? What should we call these folks? How about the Beloved?

OK, now that you have the idea about this list, I want to move your attention to the bottom of the list. Think of someone you don’t like, perhaps even someone who wishes you ill. Now, is there anyone you’d put lower on that list? Remember, this is a list compiled from all the people you know. No abstractions allowed. Real people in your real life. Who has come up with the bottom five? How about your bottom three? How about the bottom one? Has anybody not come up with anyone for your bottom 10?

Now, please close your eyes again. Bring to mind a picture of 2 or 3 members of the bottom of your list. Whisper their names out loud. Just look at them, one at a time, and notice the feelings you are experiencing as you look at them. Does anyone care to share what feelings you have? How about hate? Dislike? Fear? Are you uncomfortable? Is there a tightening in your gut? Does anyone have any ideas about what to call these people? Is there a name for this group of unpleasant folk? Anybody? Well, since these folks make us feel a little grim, let’s call them the Grims? Can we agree on that as a name, the Grims?

OK, you can open your eyes. Quite a list, eh? This list can alter how you feel, depending on what part of the list you look at -- the Beloved, or the Grims. Pretty powerful, this list-making.

There is a problem with this list-making, however. Christ rejects it out of hand. Let’s turn to Matthew’s account of the Sermon on the Mount:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you salute only your brethren, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?”

But wait a minute, you may be saying. He didn’t say a thing about lists. Just enemies.

Love your enemies.

But you don’t have any enemies. You are the enlightened sons and daughters of the late 20th Century. Few of us admit to having such a thing as an enemy. Oh, sure, we’ll admit to theoretical or impersonal enemies. But we are reluctant to denote people as enemies if we know them. But Christ seemed to be talking not about abstractions, but real people, real enemies. So, is there any juice for us in Christ’s admonition? Or are his words dated, meant for another people, another time, another continent?

Maybe it’s the word that’s the problem. Let’s see, in the absence of enemies, who do we have? Well, we have the Grims. Not really enemies, but I guess they are as good as we can come up with.

Love your Grims.

Close you eyes again, bring the bottom of your list back to mind. The Grims.

Love your Grims.

LOVE your Grims.

What do you mean, “Love your Grims”? Let’s review a few definitions of love to get a clue. First, let’s see what Webster has to say: “A deep and tender feeling of affection for or attachment or devotion to a person or persons.”

And of course, our friend Paul had a few words on the subject in case we need more detail: “Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

OK, let’s test it out. Pick any of the members of your Grim list, and see if you feel “a deep and tender feeling of affection for or attachment or devotion to” that person. Are you patient and kind with this person, or are you irritable and resentful? Do you bear all things from this person? Hmmm. Looks like we may have some work to do.

Can Christ really be calling us to love these Unlovables, these creators of pits in our stomachs, these people whom we would just as soon avoid? Raise your hands if you are at all uncomfortable with the notion of loving these people.

Yeah, me, too. Why should I? cries a voice inside. Why should I love these Grims? To a person they have wished or even done me wrong, or harmed the people I have loved.

Well, a friend of mine tells me that he often hears at his daily Alcoholics Anonymous meetings this statement: “Hating someone (or harboring a resentment against them) is like taking poison and hoping the other person gets sick from it.” In the AA arena, resentment is seen as a killer. My friend goes on to write: “Throughout the AA literature it is emphasized that resentments are the chief killer. We drink at those and at the feelings around them more often than anything.”

Is this true just of those addicted to alcohol? How about those among us that are addicted to being right, or to being acknowledged, or to security? Yes, it is for MY sake that I must love this Grim, not for his sake. It is for MY sake that I must forgive, not his. When somebody wrongs us, I mean really wrongs us, we torture ourselves trying to figure out if that person can ever merit our forgiveness. That misses the point. We need to forgive more than they need to be forgiven.

There is something irritating about this that we don’t often talk about. This kind of love reeks of indifference. If we throw away our list of Beloveds and Grims, we become indifferent. We love our conniving co-worker as we love our beloved child. We love the burglar who invaded our home last week as we love our dearest friend.

Ugh. We shudder at this indifference. It just seems wrong. Worse than that, it seems impossible.

And yet, there it is.

Love your Grims.

How? How?

This is the short part of the sermon. I don’t know. I only have a few clues. I’m pretty sure, for starters, that I’m not up to doing it on my own. So long as I reside fully entrenched in my own skin, my own point of view, I am not particularly hopeful about this indifferent love. Somehow, I must capture the Heart of God and make it my own; somehow, I must speak with the Voice of God. My heart, my voice, just aren’t up to it.

Try this, now. Close your eyes. Bring to mind Grim Number One, the head honcho. Notice, but don’t dwell on, this person’s brokenness. Then, do whatever it takes to open your heart, to make it tender and vulnerable. If you are a parent, imagine that this is your child, your hurting, sad, troubled child. Now, notice, but don’t dwell on, all the resentment and anger you have felt for this person. Notice your pain, the pain that comes directly from list-making, from judging. Say out loud to your Grim, “Will you please forgive me?”

Listen carefully, and you will hear, “I forgive you.”

Imagine, now, this person asking for your forgiveness. “I know I have wronged you. Please, will you forgive me?” Now, repeat after me, “I forgive you.” Say it again, “I forgive you.”

What you’ve just heard is the voice of God.

A Wave Named Joe

Sermon: Sunday, November 10, 1996

A pillar of our church, Pat McLucas, died a few days before I was to deliver this sermon. I had been wrestling with the general images of the sermon for weeks, since our summer vacation at the beach. Pat’s death, however, struck a deep chord in all of us, and served as a catalyst for the images of the beach.

When I was young, I often went to the beach with my family. My days were filled with activity -- fishing, swimming, games, other kids. These days, when I go the beach, while I still do some of that, I do a lot more sitting. I can sit there for long stretches of time, watching the ocean, and listening. Just listening.

The ocean has told me a story. I’d like to share it with you.

There once appeared in the ocean a wave named Joe. Like many waves, when he became conscious of himself, he looked out across the surface of the ocean, saw a bunch of other waves like himself, and decided he, too, was a wave.

Joe began to think about himself as a wave. He decided he was a disappointingly average wave. Not really big enough to suit his tastes.

He noticed a wave, not too far away, getting steadily bigger. He asked him how he did it. The other wave answered, “if you suck some of the water out of the waves next to you, you can get bigger.” Joe thought that sounded like a good idea, so he tried it. It worked, and he started to get bigger. Naturally, the waves around him got a bit smaller. Some even ceased to exist. No matter, Joe thought, at least I’m getting bigger.

Despite his increased size, he did not feel much better. Something was missing. Just then he noticed that the wave next to him, a wave named Robert, was saying something.

“Did you know, Joe, that you are part of an immensely vast, beautiful thing called Ocean?” asked Robert. “That you are filled with Ocean, that you -- and every wave you’ve ever met -- are one with the Ocean?”

Joe looked at him as though he were crazy. “Robert, I’m a wave. A very practical wave, at that. As I look around, it’s plain to see that it’s each wave for itself. If there is an Ocean, it certainly doesn’t affect my wavishness.”

As he was contemplating the foolishness Robert had said, he noticed a thin, white line way off in the distance in the direction he was heading. He was quite disturbed at what he saw -- lots of waves, one after another, seemed to be crashing against the white line -- and then, just, disappearing.

“Hey Robert,” called Joe. “What the heck is that white line up ahead?”

“Shore,” answered Robert. “We will all meet the Shore one day.”

“What happens then?” Joe asked. “It looks from here as though the waves that hit the Shore disappear. Maybe the waves that disappear go to that Ocean you were talking about.”

“No,” answered Robert. “You are Ocean before you hit the Shore, and you are Ocean after you hit the Shore. One very great wave once said, ‘the kingdom of Ocean is in your midst.’ He meant now, not just after you hit the Shore.”

“I don’t know, Robert,” said Joe. “This doesn’t look like Ocean to me. Just a bunch of waves, like me.”

Joe looked at the Shore intently. Wave after waved crashed against it, only to disappear from view. “I sure don’t like the looks of that Shore,” he said.

A little way ahead of Joe, closer to the Shore than he, was a wave he had gotten to know named Pat. He liked Pat a lot. She seemed very kind, and a little quiet. A lot of the waves seemed to like to spend time with her, telling her about their fears, and especially their worries about the Shore.

“Hey Robert,” Joe called. “What’s the deal with Pat? She seems so calm about this Shore thing. Why isn’t she worried? She’s getting pretty close to it.”

“Pat’s a very special wave, Joe,” Robert responded. “She understands that she’s a child of the Ocean. She trusts that she will always be of the Ocean. She knows that, even after she hits the shore, she’ll still be Ocean. Her understanding of that explains why so many waves want to talk to her.”

Joe still was puzzled. “I don’t get it. How does she know she’s Ocean? How does she even know there is an Ocean?”

“Most of the waves around here have heard of a great wave known to some as the Son of Ocean,” Robert responded. “He figured out that He was Ocean a long time ago. He felt such compassion for the other waves, who didn’t know they were filled with Ocean, that He spent his time as a wave telling other waves about the Ocean. Pat heard the Word of Ocean, and it made a lot of sense to her. Just like it makes a lot of sense to me.”

Joe watched with growing concern as Pat got ever closer to the shore.

His concern turned to grief as he watched the foam start to appear at the top of Pat’s wave.

“Robert,” Joe whispered. “Pat’s going to hit the Shore any second now. We’ve got to do something.”

“Joe,” Robert said calmly. “We are all going to hit the shore. All of us. But watch. Watch Pat carefully.”

Joe watched. Without showing more than just a trace of fear, Pat became consumed with sea foam. She was beautiful, luminescent. Even glorious.

And then she hit the Shore. The other waves gasped at the sight. They watched as she spread across the sand, glassy, peaceful, beautiful. Then she slipped back into the Ocean.

Joe was silent for a minute or so. “Robert,” he said tentatively. “I’m going to miss her.”

“I know, Joe. Me, too,” answered Robert. “Just remember, she hasn’t gone anywhere. She was always Ocean. She still is Ocean. She reminds us that the Son of Ocean is still Ocean, even though he hit the shore years ago.

“And she reminds us that we will always be Ocean.”

The Dance

The Dance

First, Now, sweet, full Now,

Eternal Now,

Rich, seamless Now.

Then, with the next quick step,

Next Friday, last Tuesday,

Some unknown but inevitable good day,

Some unknown but inevitable bad day,

Some . . .

No.

Now.

Now.

Sweet, sweet, Now.

How could I reject this, for that?

Tom Goddard

April 27, 2005

Entry into the world of Blog

As I have contempated what I might include in a blog, I've decided that this is not the venue for a window onto my private life, or that of others in my life. Rather, this seems a good venue for sharing of worldviews, mine in particular, but not exclusively. So, what will follow will be a series of sermonettes, lists, poems, art, and whatever else occurs to me.

So, today we start with a sermon I gave some time ago when an elder at the John Calvin Presbyterian Church in Annandale, VA, when my minister and dear friend, Robert Close, left town for a retreat and turned the pulpit over to me.

So, here it is, from almost 10 years ago.

Swim Out to the Deep End

Sermon: Sunday, July 30, 1995

Rev. Robert Close, my dear friend and then-pastor of John Calvin Presbyterian, asked if I would substitute for him in the pulpit while he attended a retreat at Shalom Mountain, New York. I said “yes”.

Standing before you is a New Man. I am now officially in the midst of the Third Wave, ready to surf. I’m crankin’ up my personal page, and I’m ready to chat. Don’t cross me, though, or I’ll flame you. Watch out. Net Man is here.

Now, I know some of you may be thinking -- “I knew this would happen if we let him have the pulpit for a few minutes. He’s flipped his lid.”

Not really. I only meant to say that I have joined the information revolution by signing onto the Internet -- burgeoning, mysterious, information superhighway that has Al Gore so excited and Bob Dole so worried.

What started as a way for the Pentagon and university scientists to collaborate on defense projects is now the hip place to hang out, to market new movies, to share your ideas anonymously with whomever will listen, to roam through the Library of Congress, and countless other ways to communicate with one’s fellow humans.

Some of the more optimistic among us see all this interconnectedness as the path to world transformation. Somehow, if we simply link up with each other, this line of reasoning goes, our sense of interconnectedness will expand our sense of community until, being transformed into global citizens, finally we will decide to live in peace.

To this, writer Ken Wilber says, not so fast:

The fact that you have a global information exchange doesn’t guarantee the quality or depth of the information you get. What good is it if the Nazis have the Net?

Good question. I’m with Wilber. The Net is neutral. One day I might hook up with someone who is committed to feeding the starving children of sub-Saharan Africa. The next day I might stumble upon the obscene photographs of exploited and abused children.

No, the Net is not the answer, but why not? Why isn’t the Internet the way people finally will overcome our differences and make peace with each other, simply become electronic neighbors, to chat across the back fence? I don’t think it is because dark and fearsome forces lurk there. Again, let’s listen to Ken Wilber:

It is often said that in today’s modern and postmodern world, the forces of darkness are upon us. But I think not; in the Dark and the Deep there are truths that can always heal. It is not the forces of darkness but of shallowness that everywhere threaten the true, and the good, and the beautiful, and that ironically announce themselves as deep and profound. It is an exuberant and fearless shallowness that everywhere nonetheless calls to us as savior.

It’s this inexorable tendency toward shallowness that scares me. We seem to spend so much time at the shallow end of the pool. We kill each other over surface distinctions of race and religion and yammer away about Kato Kaelin’s hair. We gossip about so-and-so saying thus-and-so to what’s-his-name.

When I was a child living in Ankara, Turkey, a woman named Gül (“Rose”) cleaned our apartment and helped raise me. She practiced -- no, lived -- unconditional love. She devoutly worshipped the Almighty and was cheerful amid her poverty. She was, to my young eye, all that a human could aspire to in terms of love.

Once, in Sunday School, my teacher explained to me that the only people who went to heaven were those who declared that Jesus Christ was their Lord and Savior. He was quite comfortable excluding from the Kingdom of Heaven infants, Jews, Buddhists, and, to my amazement, Moslems like Gül. This was a blow, because I loved Gül. When as a tearful 11-year-old, I asked my mother why God would send Gül to Hell, she explained that He wouldn’t. “God doesn’t care about those little differences,” she explained to this grateful child.

I want to tell you about a man who wandered around the Middle East calling for the overthrow of the legalists who sat atop the religious hierarchy of the day. Through prayer and service, he directly experienced his unity with God such that he once cried out “I am the Truth.” He also said:

I am he whom I love, and He whom I love is I:

We are two spirits dwelling in one body.

If thou seest me, thou seest Him.

And if thou seest Him, thou seest us both.

The authorities captured, imprisoned, and crucified him. At his crucifixion he said:

and these thy servants who are gathered to slay me, in zeal for Thy religion and in desire to win Thy favors, forgive them, O Lord, and have mercy upon them; for verily if Thou had revealed to them that which Thou has revealed to me, they would not have done what they have done; and if Thou hadst hidden from me that which thou has hidden from them, I should not have suffered this tribulation. Glory unto Thee in whatsoever thou doest, and glory unto Thee inwhatsoever Thou willest.

Sound familiar? Is this man’s message so radically different from the One who calls us to this place? Apparently so, because the carriers of Christ’s torch and the carriers of his faith’s banner have warred for centuries. He is an Islamic mystic named al-Hallaj who lived a thousand years after Christ, in Baghdad.

At the shallow end of the pool, there seem many differences between Sufis and Christians. At the deep end, we cannot tell Christ from al-Hallaj, Gotama from Mohammed, Presbyterian from Hindu, John Calvin from Lao Tze.

How do we get to the deep end of the pool? There is a simply way to swim to the deep end. It’s called prayer. It is also called meditation.

Listen to the words of Christ:

And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

In this church, we often talk about the mystery of God. This is not just an admission that God surpasses our feeble understanding. The word “mystery” derives from the Greek verb musteion: to close the eyes or mouth. There is an implication here of silence and darkness. To me, there is an implication of prayer and meditation.

In our tradition, we often think of prayer as a discussion with God -- giving thanks, asking for guidance, seeking forgiveness. But the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard talks of another type of prayer. Listen --

As my prayer became more attentive and inward I had less and less to say.

I finally became completely silent.

I started to listen . . . which is even further removed from speaking. I first though that praying entailed speaking. I then learnt that praying is hearing, not merely being silent.

This is how it is.

To pray does not mean to listen to oneself speaking. Prayer involves becoming silent, and being silent, and waiting until God is heard.

In each faith in which one looks -- Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism -- one can find aspects of the faith that stress the mystery of the One Divine Creator. Naturally, each faith calls the Almighty by a different name -- Yahweh, Christ-nature, Allah, Dharma-Mind, Atman -- hundreds of names for hundreds of peoples. But I believe that, when we still our minds and souls and listen -- just listen -- the voice we all will hear will be the same.

In the quiet depths of prayer and meditation -- where we allow God to touch our hearts -- there is a place we can meet. At the deep end of the pool.