[Propertalk] Proper 16 c rcl

[Robert P Morrison]

This was written on Saturday evening last. I have yet to re-read it and re-read it.

Bob

THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY     THE THIRTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
JEREMIAH 1:4-10	 	    					    PROPER 16 C RCL
HEBREWS 12:18-29			 				    22nd AUGUST, 2010  
LUKE 13:10-17				                                    PSALM 71:1-6

	Three quotes, independent of one another, from different sources, with different original intents, seem to interact with one another – within my mind, at least – and nurture one another to produce a common thought.
	See how they resonate with you.
	First, a sign which might well occupy a prominent place in any home or office. Better yet, on a T-shirt:
	“good at delegating anxiety so nobody sleeps all that well around here.”  1
	Second, an unusually frank and disarming, self-revealing comment:
	“I never knew all there was in the Bible until I spent those years in jail. I was constantly finding new treasures.” 2
	Third, a report on a tragic example of human behavior gone hideously wrong:
	“We want to pay tribute to each of our colleagues (physicians and other health care workers) who died, to their commitment to serve the Afghan people. Those who have known them and seen them at work can do nothing but pay the highest tribute to them ... In some news articles, the people on this team have been described as ‘saints.’ This is not how they saw themselves. They were basically selfless professionals willing to spend their lives and energy in a meaningful way.” 3
	To me, these point out two things. Left to our own devices, we can succumb easily to the temptation to take care of our own needs, and if that means hurting or destroying someone or something else, then so be it. And that temptation is having a tremendous impact on us right now – everywhere from Church life, to domestic life, to city, national and international relations. The other thing, however, is that if we find a way to reach beyond ourselves, not only to God , but to reach beyond ourselves to other human beings; if we hope – if we EXPECT – to serve not only God, but our sisters and brothers on this planet and beyond – then we can be part of something which is “infinitely more than we can ask or imagine” 4, and that EVERYTHING that we do can be offered to God’s glory and our eternal joy.
	So here’s another leaf of grass to offer us pause for thought.
	“Walt Whitman, America’s poet, was an optimist at a time when it was easier to be a pessimist. He lived through the Civil War, one of the darkest periods in American history, and drew strength from the struggle. He saw the potential for greatness that lies in each of us, to flourish in our personal search
and build our brave vision of this country.” 5
	Once again, advertising has shown an incredible amount not just of Scrooge McDuck-ness, or of unfounded optimism, but of what seems to me the insight to seek a deep spiritual comfort and meaning for what’s happening in the world around us when things seem to be confusing at best, and paralysingly frightening at worst. 
	This time, though, it’s not the Insurance Company’s image and slogan, as I mentioned on the first of August at the Baptisms and Eucharist in the park – this time it’s that U.S. institution, Levi’s ®, and its new advertising agency based in Portland, not sixty miles from us here, who awaken our senses and, again I have to say that for me, at least, awakened also a reminder of the depth and the range of spiritual expression in how, where and why we encounter God in the world.
	This time we have “the simple, emotive beauty of Walt Whitman's ‘America.’
		Centre of equal daughters, equal sons,
		All, all alike endear’d, grown, ungrown, young or old,
		Strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich,
		Perennial with the Earth, with Freedom, Law and Love,
		A grand, sane, towering, seated Mother,
		Chair’d in the adamant of Time.
	“It’s a stirring poem, and is even more moving in Whitman’s own voice, (as used in the TV commercial,) played from an old wax-recording treasure underneath the images.” 7
	It sounds almost as good as James Earl Jones subbing for God.
	But what on earth does this have to do with the Gospel? What does this say about our life – not as consumers of denim, but of people who still have to be aware of the cost of things? This IS the Gospel, or at least one of God’s parables for 2010.
	LOOK at today’s Gospel passage, then. “Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath.” 6 He was doing His thing – like hanging at Starbucks ®, or lunching at Cappies’, or serving meals at St. Mary’s, or quilting in the parish hall. He interrupted making some point about some text or other, looked over the heads of those milling around Him and called out to a woman whose stoop was crippling her. He reached out and He touched her.
	Nothing is said about whether or not He’d taken “Safe Church” classes or some other sensitivity training. He reached over all the learned, significant enquirers in whatever village that was, and touched one of the people there from whom everyone carefully averted their gaze. He drew every eye and every mind in that small space to focus on the effects of some disease or accident that had isolated her from everyone else, possibly even her family. Jesus interrupted what some might have called His primary duty, to engage in this act of mercy. He did it in a place where possibly healing may never had happened before. Jesus, it seems, was constantly on the alert not necessarily to tweak the noses of those whose noses most frequently were out of joint, but to tweak the unexpressible hope so that it became reality in a world which had given up on transformation.
	And that, unfortunately, may be where we sit today.
	We become so rule-bound, or tradition-bound, that Canon Law’s tentacles strangle, rather than untangle. We become so inhibited by the way that our grandparents and great grandparents did things – or the way we IMAGINE that they did things – that we don’t notice the folk who’re stooped over; those who have to put something back on the store shelf because they can’t afford it; those who’re bound by feelings of uncertainty and inconfidence; those who are unable or unwilling to risk having hope for compassion and change; those locked into situations which seem to control them every day.
		And – unfortunately, I included sometimes – we grumble about why folk can’t run their errands or seek help when offices are open and others aren’t at the end of their work days and are looking forward to spending well-earned time with families, or friends, or a book, or that favourite TV show. We accuse them – I accuse them – of showing up to ask for help after five on a Friday when I can’t verify a story, and the motel rates are higher for the weekend, and most, if not all other agencies are closed.
	This is the stuff of which the Gospel is full – the tension between the awkwardness of taking care of those who’re teetering on the fringes of society and making sure that we can provide for our own needs and those of our families. We’re placed face-to-face with the needs of the whole of creation, and of our call to serve God through everything we do.  We’re reminded that God has already empowered us to be able to minister.
	ALL this is the business of the Church – even in the midst of singing a hymn, or hearing God’s word, or listening to a comment about it. ALL this is the business of the Church, especially when the Bread of Life and the Cup of Salvation are placed in our hands. They, above all, speak about the need to be sensitive of what’s around us.
	And, fortunately, when the Church may be slow to see or hear what’s happening, God slips in a reminder – in the pages of the Democrat-Herald, or the billboard at the stop light, or the commercial on the TV screen.
	Yes, as often as not, the words and images there ARE designed to make us feel that we need one more object, of which we have at least sixteen working models in a closet somewhere at home. Yes, these advertisements DO tend to serve some capitalist need.
	But then every now and again, God whispers out, in humourous tone, and says – “Remember, an advertisement is defined as “The turning of the mind to ANYTHING” and “The action of calling the attention of others” 8 - which, as near as I can tell, is how evangelism – how telling the Good News of Jesus – is defined also. And this EVERBODY can do, whether she or he knows it or not.
	Turning back to those three supposedly isolated quotations right at the start, and tweaking just a little  – God is “good at relieving anxiety so EVERYBODY can sleep well around here.”
	The prison quote stands as it did – there’s an INCREDIBLE amount of treasure to be gleaned from bringing to the forefront of our minds what’s in the Bible. Thinking of that stooped woman is only the beginning.
	And those who ignore danger, and ridicule, and custom, and everything that’s tradition-bound – for the sake of even one stooped or war-torn person – they ARE saints, especially if they have to elbow people out of the way to get to the source of the problem.
	So – begin from the pew in which you’re sitting. That’s the spot from which Jesus noticed that woman. Then move out in ever-widening circles from there. Move out farther and farther, every day.
	After all, the Levis ® commercial, of all things, is entitled “Go forth”.
	Go figure!

NOTES:
1 	StoryPeople	Annette at storypeople.org  
2               John Bunyan (1628-1688), quoted in A Treasury of Sermon           Illustrations, Charles Langworthy Wallis, ed., Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1950, p. 27 See the book at http://cqod.com/r/rs473 
3	The International Assistance Mission, on the 10 members of their team killed Friday in Afghanistan.  (Source: International Assistance Mission)  Quoted by Soujourners 12th August, 2010 SojoMail at sojo.net 
4	Ephesians 3:20
5	09.01.09 Levi's Go Forth print ads Print Ads, Consumer www.commarts.com/exhibit/levis-forth-print-ads.html 
6	Wieden+Kennedy's Go Forth campaign for Levi’s®, see above.  
7	Luke 13:10 – N.R.S.V.
8	Oxford English Dictionary. Primary and secondary meanings. Emphasis added.



--
Robert P. Morrison
Interim Vicar
The Episcopal Church of St Alban,
P.O. Box 1556,
Albany, Oregon, 97321

541-921-1076 (cell)
541-967-7051 (church)