MAGAZINE
A changing current selection of sermons, meditations, thoughts, quotes, prayers, book reviews, poems, artworks, and photos....
GUEST SERMONS
Blessing of the Animals
October 8, 2006
I recently heard the story of a psychological counselor who was visited by an elderly married couple. They told him they were splitting up. The counselor asked them the reason, and the wife quickly answered: "He doesn't laugh anymore." The therapist asked the husband why he didn't laugh. "Well," the man said, "we were traveling a year ago and my wife wasn't careful with her handbag with all our cash and credit cards. It created a mess of us financially. There's nothing to laugh about." The therapist thought for a moment and said: "The exact same thing happened to me and my wife. She left her wallet unguarded with all our credit cards. However, I haven't reported it to the police, because whoever found the credit cards has been spending less than she did." And the husband began to laugh. When the therapist got home that evening, feeling jolly about his story and the effect it had, he told his wife. She didn't laugh. Whether we laugh or not about this story we are really demonstrating something about our gendered sense of relationships and how some old stereotypes unconsciously play out in our lives--however sensitive and liberated we may feel.
The scripture readings today have sometimes been filtered through and interpreted more by cultural values that by what the Bible may actually be telling us. Look at the reading today from Genesis. What people often in the past derived from this rich reflection by the Yahwist writer is the throw-away line describing woman as merely "Adam's rib" (like the old Tracy and Hepburn movie title--though even there the witty play between the sexes showed us a relationship of great complexity).
But listen for a moment to what it tells us: The Creator says, "It is not good that the man [the Adham, created from the Adhamah/the dust] should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner." So God formed the animals and allowed the man the divine power of naming them--whatever he called each one was its true name and identity. The human is the co-creator with God in the sacred act of naming. But none proved a proper helper and partner for the man. Animals are grand as pets and workers, or exotic free creatures in the wilderness, but none are adequate as a full human partner. So God anesthetizes the man, puts him in a deep sleep, and forms from him the woman--not from another animal or object. So from human flesh and bone, no inferior or alien material, God made woman. There's wordplay here in Hebrew ("ish"/man and "ishshah"/woman). God seems to enjoy puns like the rest of us. The woman is no lesser being but the very stuff, the essence of the partner that makes him leave the old family of father and mother to form a new unity with his helpmate: he is no longer alone. Perhaps we should remember that the only other figure in the Hebrew Bible who is called man's "helpmate" is God. So rather than a mere rib, the woman is a reflection of God who worried that humans might be alone. And so we are made to live in community with others.
"What are human beings that you are mindful of them," the letter to the Hebrews and the psalm declares, "or mortals that you care for them? You have made them for a little while lower than the angels." And only a little lower than the angels. The creature of dust is made to rise above the very stars.
In Mark's Gospel, we hear about Jesus being tested by the Pharisees, those holier-than-thou types (we have all encountered them) who see the holy word as a strict set of rules and regulations, written on their hearts of stone. And these words of Jesus about marriage and divorce, often termed one of his "hard sayings," are so often seen only in the perspective of unbending law and commandment. It is no wonder that Jesus reacts and responds to them that the way they have lived and understood the Law, rather than the source of mutual respect and love, is garbled in legalese. "Because of your hardness of heart [Moses] wrote this commandment for you." God's business is all about joining, knitting together, unifying, creating something new; and here the divorce lawyers are all about the loopholes. In fact we should note they begin the discussion of marriage by focusing on divorce! But we can look at it another way. Since obtaining a "get," a divorce certificate, was only available to men in marriages from this ancient era, the woman had no such rights or protections. She could be sent packing for any cause at any time, without any system of defense or support. Matthew's Gospel allows divorce for "acts of unfaithfulness" (the woman's unfaithfulness) or prior forbidden acts (never specified), but there is nothing about the man's conduct or unfaithfulness. So some New Testament scholars have suggest that here Jesus is, in fact, building a protective shield for women--the vulnerable, the defenseless, but no less the image and likeness of God in flesh as surely and as sacredly as the male.
This portion of Mark's Gospel ends here. I think it should go further to include the subsequent passage in which the children flock to Jesus to be touched, and the disciples sternly rebuke those who brought the children. But Jesus rebukes his own holier-than-thou followers: Let the little children come to me. "And he took the children up in his arms..." Of course the disciples were right; the children and their mothers were certainly potential contacts of ritual impurity and contagion according to a strict Pharasaical interpretation of the law. But once again we see Jesus proclaim by word and action what the creation means in us: In his embrace none are unclean, pure, marginal. The Kingdom that Jesus knew and lived in the depths of his very being is gathered from the blind, the lame, the lepers, the disabled and disturbed, vulnerable women and children, tax-collectors, sinners...us. It is a kingdom open to us all, who are called to become as little children, safe in God's welcoming and loving arms.
Today is also our commemoration of Francis of Assisi, that 13th-century saint, the "troubador of God," associated with the annual blessing of the animals and the praise of God in all creation. His life and preaching are reminders that the care of our all-embracing God is not narrowly anthropocentric, but inclusively biocentric. He's got the whole world in his hands. Male and female, as stewards of creation our responsibility is not just to the poor, vulnerable, and outcast of human society, but also all of Nature, "all creatures great and small." It is that whole ark of creation we carry in our arms and in our hearts, a lifeboat of all the living that share this planet Earth. As Francis sang: "Be praised, my Lord, through all creatures...through Brother Sun...radiant in all his splendor...through Sister Moon and the stars...precious and beautiful...through Brother Wind [and] Sister Water...through Brother Fire, through whom you brighten the night...through our Sister, Mother Earth, who feeds and rules us...Be praised, my Lord, through those who forgive for love of you; through those who endure sickness and trial...and serve you with great humility." We bless the animals, but they in turn bless us. Animals are God's gift, holy and homely, given to us as an original blessing to release in us the energy of compassion and care from our God who did not want us to be alone. We tend at times to sentimentalize Jesus or Brother Francis, and forget the real cost of love and openness. When Francis composed this lovely "Canticle of Creation" he had already received the bleeding marks of Christ's passion. "God's little fool," the "Poverello"/poor man lived in excruciating pain and was painfully blind, as if pieces of glass were piercing his eyes, he tells us, and for whom the least glimmer of light had become sheer torture. Yet Francis could still sing with joy: Be praised, my Lord, through all your creatures, especially through...Brother Sun...he is beautiful and radiant in all his splendor! Francis knew the unity of spirit the Creator brings. Such spiritual vision from the Lord of our hearts lets us see the unity we and the animals continue to have from God's creative hand.
So, Lord, we pray that you open our eyes and our hearts wide, as wide as your world, that the blessing of the animals may allow all of us to experience and unite together in the laughter of creation.
+In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
---R W Rhodes
Feast of the Transfiguration
August 6, 2006
There is something about mountains and hills that the Bible loves: "I will life up my eyes to the hills. From whence does my help come?" (Ps. 121); "God's holy mountain . . . is a joy to all the earth" (Ps. 48); "As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about his people" (Ps. 125). And from Sinai in the south to Hermon in the north specific mountains are used as symbols of God's majesty and power. "Surely one shall come who looms up like Tabor among the mountains, or like Carmel by the sea" (Jer. 46:18). So it should come as no surprise that the heights of a mountain are the location of this transfiguring event in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, where Peter, James, and John to whom so many secrets of the Kingdom of God are imparted are taken up with Jesus, "apart by themselves," and witness the glistening pure light transform the face of Jesus and his robes, as Mark's Gospel says: whitened whiter than any bleach. Beside him are Moses, the Law-giver from Mt. Sinai, and Elijah, the heavenly prophet from Mt. Carmel who would announce the coming Messiah; both of them are talking with Jesus -- the Law and the Prophets confirming the special role of Jesus as the Christ, and as Luke's Gospel today presents this scene, affirming the coming violent passion, death, and resurrection of the Savior. The sleepy, perplexed Peter, "not knowing what he said," not really knowing what they have seen, awkwardly suggests they build three dwellings, for Moses, Elijah, and Jesus, to make permanent what is beyond being captured by buildings -- the blinding manifestation of the hidden messiahship of Jesus. It is like the late Anwar Sadat after the Camp David accords suggesting they build three temples on Sinai for Moses, Jesus, and Mohammad, to capture the elusive spirit of peace in bricks and concrete. And like the earlier episode of the Lord's baptism, the divine voice from the hiddenness of an overshadowing cloud confirms and commissions the messiahship of Jesus: "This is my Son, my Chosen" (or as it says in 2 Peter, "my Beloved"); "listen to him." And in the end the privileged three -- and those of us today privileged to hear these words of celestial glory -- are left with "Jesus alone." Perhaps this is a hint to us now that these words are not spoken to us or to the disciples to simply dazzle or overwhelm, but to empower and set free, by setting Jesus before us, Jesus alone. It is a story to light our way, to transfigure us.
This section of Luke's Gospel has traditionally been located on Mt. Tabor. Har Tavor, what Arabs have called a "mountain of mountains," along with Mt. Sinai, Mt. Carmel at Haifa on the sea, and the snow-capped Mt. Hermon. It's about 17km west of the Sea of Galilee, and southeast of Nazareth. Some of you will remember that I have spoken to you before about the time I climed Mt. Tabor with a group of friends. I should say I was coerced into climbing Tabor on a day as "cool and refreshing" as the mercury-bubbling days you recently endured in New York -- just add another ten degrees! But as these friends insisted: it's a dry heat! As a confirmed flatlander I should have known better. At least there was a road to follow, beginning at a small Bedouin village -- hairpin curves zigzagging up the mountain to the shrines at the top. And after finally passing through a stone gateway that dated to Crusader times, I reached the great, decorated basilica, erected in 1924 on the spot where St. Helena, mother of Constantine, had built the first shrine in the 4th century and others had refashioned it as a church and fortress down through Saracen times to the modern age.
Before entering the church I collapsed beside a low stone wall, hoping to refill my collapsed lungs, and wondering if they dispensed Last Rites inside. Just then, honking and racing its engine, there appeared in the courtyard a Bedouin taxi -- actually a Mercedes stretch limo -- with several younger, much younger, members of the group. No one had told me about a taxi, and these recent arrivals, "wise as the serpent," placed my ascent by foot in perspective by saying: "If God didn't want us to use the taxi, He wouldn't have put that Bedouin village at the foot of Tabor." I finally overcame my shock and respiratory distress enough to scan the magnificent view from the terrace: the majestic eastern end of the Jezreel Valley -- the scene of ancient battles and conquests, stretching as far as Nazareth, Zippori, and Afula -- names familiar to us in this last month of new battles and rocket strikes. But I clasped with my petty spirit the smug sense that I had earned this vision: the old-fashioned way!
But what should I have been thinking, apart from cursing the internal-combustion engine, as I climbed that holy mountain and viewed the gleaming mosaic images inside of the transcendent Jesus, flanked by Moses whose face shone with the light of Sinai and Elijah whose features were like lightning on the height of Carmel, where I also later visited (this time by bus!). Mountains are those special physical points, hovering between heaven and earth, where people are called to see and hear the visions and voices of transcendence in all the religious traditions of humanity. Mountain caps catch the first light and glow long after darkness has filled the valleys and plains below: ". . . lift up my eyes unto the hills," as a psalmist says. The mountain of light, the mountain of silence, lets us see and hear what the distractions, deceptions, and depressions in our lives "in the valley of the shadow of death" obscure and block.
The story of this Transfiguration gives us some hints about trekking the mountainous paths of our own life in the spirit. In kernel form it presents to us the basic beliefs of our Christian life, and insight that motivated a group of Presbyterian ministers in 1999 to form the "Company of the Transfiguration" to advance the spiritual life. Where do we discern in our lives the mountain of vision and clarity -- where the celestial glory of the sonship of Jesus is revealed? Here in church in hearing God's word and breaking bread together? In the word of love we share with each other? In the acts of love beyond fear we show to the world, to light the way for those in darkness and the "grief of sin"? How do we let go judging how others may get to this point of clear vision? At our spiritual mountaintops we are poised in the present moment between the past -- as in birthdays, anniversaries, and special events -- remembering the old ways, the tradition, the laws as imparted by Moses or by our society, and the future, the prophetic openness to the not-yet, as proclaimed in the figure of Elijah in the cloud of the latter days. Light, silence, stillness of body and spirit, expectancy and awe while we witness on the peak of the mountain of our soul -- these may offer some characteristics for our prayer. In such transfiguring moments we can at last embrace the power-giving ending of this Gospel, meant to direct all our prayers and praise, to guide us to our beacon of light: "When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone." In that silence let us look together to Jesus -- alone.
+In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
---R W Rhodes
BOOK REVIEW
Prayer: A History, by Philip and Carol Zaleski (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005), 355 pp. with 22 b&w illustrations, plus bibliography, endnotes, and index. Hardback $29.95; paperback (scheduled for release in October 2006) $15.95. New York Public Library Branch holdings: eight copies.
This book could help us move closer to the ideal that Paul sets before us: to pray without ceasing. After reading the first section, "God's Breath," I had a sense of the cosmos itself as a great ongoing Prayer always inviting us to conscious participation. I suspect even the most knowledgeable reader will find surprises and delights here. For me these included, among many, how the art and burials of prehistoric peoples point to their prayer life; the story of General Patton's command to Chaplain O'Neill to pray for good weather for the Third Army's march to the Rhine (the reluctant chaplain composed what sounds to me like a good Anglican prayer and the skies cleared); Samuel Johnson's agonized de profundis prayers; the Gaelic prayers and incantations handed down in the oral tradition that were gathered by Alexander Carmichael in the late 1800s and published between 1901 and 1971 as Carmina Gadelica.
The primary focus is on prayer in the Western Christian tradition, but the book is enriched with examples from many historical and contemporary traditions: Sumerian, Hebrew, Egyptian, Jewish, Islamic, Sufi, Hindu, Buddhist, Tibetan, Plains Indian. Nonverbal forms of prayer are given attention as well: icons, of course, but also the paintings of Fra Angelico, Vermeer, and Kandinsky; the film Andrei Rublev; Chartres Cathedral; the Sun Dance of the Sioux. Opportunities for, doorways to prayer lie everywhere around us and one accomplishment of this book is to make us more sensitive to them, inviting us to enter more often into the great ongoing Prayer.
---Reviewed by ELB
