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Contents:
November 30, 2008
On the day the world ends A bee circles a clover, A fisherman
mends a glimmering net.
Happy porpoises jump in the sea, by the rainspout young
sparrows are playing And the snake is golden-skinned as it
always should be.
On the day the world ends Women walk through the fields under
their umbrellas, A drunkard grow sleepy at the end of the lawn,
Vegetable peddlers shout in the street And a yellow-sailed boat
comes nearer the island, The voice of a violin lasts in the air
And leads into a starry night.
And those who expected lightning and thunder Are
disappointed, And those who expected signs of archangels’
trumpets Do not believe it is happening now, As long as the sun
and the moon are above, As long as the bumblebee visits a rose,
As long as rosy infants are born No one believes it is happening
now.
Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet Yet is
not a prophet, for he’s much too busy, Repeats while he binds
his tomatoes: There will be no other end of the world, There
will be no other end of the world.
●
Czeslaw Milosz, “A Song on the End of the World,”
Warsaw, 1944
The regularity of Christmas makes genuine expectancy
difficult, at least for adults. Perhaps facing the
unexpectedness of the ultimate divine invasion can lift
believers above institutionalized expectations to a more vital
watchfulness. Mark 13 speaks to those who expect too much and
to those who expect too little. It is especially pertinent for
those who have forgotten to expect anything at all.
●
Lamar Williamson, Jr.
For the Darkness of waiting, of not knowing what is to come,
of staying ready and quiet and attentive, we praise you, O God:
For the darkness and the light are both alike to you . . .
.
For the darkness of hoping in a world which longs for you,
for the wrestling and laboring of all creation for wholeness and
justice and freedom, we praise you, O God:
For the darkness and the light are both alike to you.
●
Janet Morley
Stir up our hearts, we beseech you, to prepare ourselves
to receive your Son.
●
The Gelasian Sacramentary, c. 500
top of page
November 23, 2008
Imagine
a sermon that begins: “Blessed are you poor. Blessed are those
of you who are hungry. Blessed are those of you who are
unemployed. Blessed are those going through marital
separation. Blessed are those whoa are terminally ill.” The
congregation does a double take. What is this? In the kingdom
of the world, if you are unemployed, people treat you as if you
have some sort of social disease. In the world’s kingdom,
terminally ill people become an embarrassment to our health-care
system, people to be put away, out of sight. How can they be
blessed? The preacher responds, “I’m sorry. I should have been
more clear. I am not talking about the way of the world’s
kingdom. I am talking about God’s kingdom. “In God’s kingdom,
the poor are royalty, the sick are blessed. I was trying to get
you to see something other than that to which you have become
accustomed.” . . . We can only act within a world we can see.
Vision is the necessary prerequisite for ethics.
●
Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon
And God will divide the
sheep from the goats,
The one on the right, the
other on the left.
And to them on the right
God’s a-going to say:
Enter into my kingdom. / Up
and down the golden street,
Feasting on the milk and
honey / Singing new songs of Zion,
Chattering with the angels /
All around the Great White Throne . . . . / And
two by two they’ll walk.
And to them on the left
God’s a-going to say:
Depart from me into
everlasting darkness,
Down into the bottomless
pit.
And the wicked like lumps of
lead will start to fall,
Headlong for seven days and
nights they’ll fall,
Plumb into the big, black
red-hot mouth of hell,
Belching out fire and
brimstone. . . .
●
James
Weldon Johnson, “The Judgment Day”
top of page
“Who
needs a God who suffers?” “What are you praying for? . . .
Anyone else trying to help God make up his mind?”
●
PBS, “God on Trial”
“If I were the Creator,” Nathan said, “most of all, I’d want
my creatures to live every minute of their life, not to be
so afraid of doing something wrong that they failed to savor
the feast I’d prepared for them. I’d want my people to
plant, and swim, and taste, and see, and play. As the
sunsets’ and the rainbows’ creator, I’d love these purples
and acid-greens you’ve painted this room, and I would be
glad you risked loving.”
●
Grant Spradling
Our deepest fear is not
that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that
we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our
darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I
to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually,
who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn’t
serve the world.
There’s nothing
enlightened about shrinking so that
other people won’t feel
insecure around you.
We were born to make
manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just
in some of us, it’s in everyone.
And as we let our light
shine, we unconsciously
give other people
permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from
our own fear,
our presence automatically
liberates others.
●
Marianne
Williamson, Return to Love
What happens to a dream deferred? / Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun? / Or fester like a sore –
and then run? Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over – / like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it sags / like a heavy load.
OR DOES IT EXPLODE?
●
Langston Hughes, “Harlem”
top of page
One day Leonie [an
older sister], no doubt thinking she was too old to play
with dolls, came to us both with a basket filled with their
clothes, ribbons, and other odds and ends. Her own doll was
on top. She said, “Here you are, darlings. Take what you
want.” Celine took a little bundle of silk braid. I
thought for a moment, then stretched out my hand and
declared: “I choose everything,” and, without more ado, I
carried off the lot. Everyone thought this quite fair.
This episode sums up the whole of my life. . . . My God, I
choose all. I do not want to be a saint by halves.
●
Therese Martin, 19th
century French mystic
Choose, choose, choose / to fight or run / to sleep or
read
to study or play / to be faithful or promiscuous / to
obey or rebel / to yield or resist / to create or destroy /
to repent or deny / to forgive or resent / to save or spend
to take risks or be cautious / to dream / to trust
Who will I trust? Who will I serve? Who will I please?
The crowd, the fashion, the neighbors?
For what will I sacrifice . . . ? Choose this day. . . .
●
Paulo Solari
Two roads diverged in a
wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler,
long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where
it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, just as
fair, And having perhaps the better claim Because it was
grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning
equally lay In leaves not step had trodden black. Oh, I
kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on
to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be
telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two
roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less
traveled by, and that has made all the difference.
●
Robert Frost, “The Road
Not Taken”
top of page
Psalm 107 teaches the congregation and its members to
understand themselves as the redeemed. Most of all and
first of all they are the sinners and the helpless whose cry
to God has been answered by God’s hesed. We are the hungry
and thirsty who have been fed. We are the bound who have
been liberated. We are the sinners deserving of death who
have been given life. We are the fearful before the terrors
of existence who have been given hope.
●
James Mays
Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
Yes, to the very end.
Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?
From morn to night, my friend. . . .
Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?
Those who have gone before.
Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?
They will not keep you standing at that door. . . .
●
Christina Rossetti, “Up-Hill”
Lord, help us to find the well
where you await us at every stage of our lives.
And we shall set out again, thirsting, at last,
for none but the living water
which you have promised us.
●
Pierre Talee
There is a river whose streams make glad the city of
God,the holy habitation of the Most High.
God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved.
●
Psalm 46:4-5a
top of page
October 26, 2008
Every day we learn again to live
in peace.
We recall how to live in love
through the ceremony each does for
Earth
not once in a lifetime but
continuously.
We know deep inside we cannot heal
the Earth
if we hate ourselves or others.
Earth heals when we heal.
Healing is slow, one moment at a
time
each new wound a setback.
Earth is not surprised, she has
grown
accustomed to our injurious ways.
She endures as mother of life.
Stunted within the prisons of our
minds
we destroy our place within her.
Not seeing her as mother of life
she becomes barren, shrinking
from our touch as though abused.
But here we are, perhaps only a
few,
or perhaps a multitude, intending
healing,
intending love and compassion.
Intent upon healing and love
we let down the walls, let go the
fear,
embracing life and its awareness
choosing to listen to the spirit
of life
so the mother of flesh may be
healed
and future generations may grow in
diversity
consciousness and compassion.
So it is in this moment, on this
day, this Earth day.
She rises within our spirits to
greet and embrace
the beloved flesh of her flesh,
children of life.
●
Guarionex Delgado, “On This Earth Day,” April, 2008
top of page
For humanity was made in God’s image and likeness . . .
Our true and lasting good therefore is to be stamped anew by
regeneration. This seems to me the sense which wise
interpreters have applied to our Lord’s words upon looking
at Caesar’s tribute money: Render to Caesar the things that
are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s. It is as
if Jesus had said: God, like Caesar, demands from us the
impression of God’s own image. Just as we repay Caesar’s
coinage to Caesar, so return the soul to God, shining and
stamped with the light of God’s countenance.
●
St. Augustine
“There are three great things that happen to a man in his
lifetime. Buying a house . . . a car . . . and a new color
TV. That is what America is all about.”
●
Archie Bunker, TV series “All in the Family”
God coined us in God’s image . . . We are God’s money,
and we should be spent. . . . Money should circulate, we
should circulate; money should go from hand to hand, we
should go from hand to hand; . . . money should be used, we
should be used; . . . money is going to be worn, we should
be going to be worn.
We should be spent, we are coins, God is trying to use
us, to pay off our debts, to pay off all the debts we owe
each other here on earth. . . .
Let us risk being used, and we will be increased, and the
end will be glory . . . .
●
Joseph Donders
Stamp me in your heart, Upon your limbs,
Sear my emblem deep Into your skin.
For love is as strong as death, Harsh as the grave.
Its tongues are flames – a fierce And holy blaze.
Endless seas and floods, Torrents and rivers
Never put out love’s Infinite fires.
●
Marcia
Falk
top of page
October 12, 2008
You
that do truly and earnestly repent you of your sins to Almighty
God, and be in love and charity with your neighbors, and intend
to lead a new life, following the commandments to God, and
walking from henceforth in his holy ways; Draw near, and take
this holy sacrament to your comfort; make your humble confession
to Almighty God, and to his holy church here gathered together
in his name, meekly kneeling upon your knees.
● “Invitation
to Communion,” from Book of Common Prayer
God’s invitation is most
gracious; all are invited, both bad and good. But just because
all are invited does not mean there are no standards, no
expectations of the guests. A wedding garment (kingdom talk for
new life, righteous conduct) is expected.
● Fred
Craddock
Wait
for me, Lord: I’m coming!
Wait
for me, Lord: I’m getting dressed!
I am
clothing my eyes with goodness
to
look at everyone in friendship.
I am
clothing my hands with peace
to
forgive without keeping track.
I am
clothing my lips with a smile
to
offer joy all day long.
I am
clothing my body and my heart with prayer
to
turn towards you, Lord whom I love.
Now
I am ready! It’s me! Do you recognize me?
I
have put on my best clothing!
● Charles
Singer, “Change”
Textured with struggle
and joy, colored with passion and compassion, laced with faith,
hope and love –
Wedding guests in living
garments fully engaged in God’s feast of life.
● Susan
A. Blain
top of page
Isn’t
that what religion is all about? I think so – to tell you how to
behave. God made a Covenant with our people, that’s what we learned
the other day in Hebrew School. Moses was given the Ten
Commandments, and that’s the biggest time in our history, when that
happened. Just because we can’t get all A’s, make a perfect record,
doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep trying.
● Tony, age 11
Let
me say it as radically and provocatively as possible. We cannot be
Christians without being Jews, or more accurately, without knowing
the method of the Jew. We cannot understand the meaning of
forgiveness unless we first throw ourselves into a radical concern
about the nature of right moral action. We cannot be delivered from
the curse of the law unless first of all we know, contemplate, and
strive to keep the law. We cannot comprehend acceptance and grace
unless we have first felt the intensity of the Jewish experience of
God’s command to fulfill the law.
● Don Browning
The
purpose of the laws of the Torah is to promote compassion,
loving-kindness and peace in the world.
● Moses Maimonides
We know what is right, and in
enacting together a covenantal community we live more fully in the
peace of God. Too often when the church depicted “covenant” in art,
the only image presented was a stern Moses delivering the tablets of
the law. Perhaps the Israelites dancing together on the safe side
of the sea is a better depiction of the covenant. This part of the
narrative suggests that God has mercifully saved the people, and the
community has joined together in praise.
● Gail Ramshaw
top of page
September 28, 2008
I can only explain my own life and the events of the times in which I’ve
lived in the context of faith—a biblical faith that continues to see the
hand of God working in the affairs of the children of creation. This is
a simple proclamation of my understanding of life. My life has unfolded
around me in ways that fill me with awe and wonder. The testimony of
men and women down through the ages can help us to discover or discern a
spiritual direction for our lives.
●
Andrew Young
Moyers:
Myths are stories of our search through the ages for the truth, for
meaning, for significance. We need to tell our story and to understand
our story. We all need to understand death and to cope with death, and
we all need help in our passages from birth to life and then to death.
We need for life to signify, to touch the eternal, to understand the
mysterious, to find out who we are.
Campbell:
People say that what we’re all seeking is meaning for life. I don’t
think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think what we’re seeking as
an experience of being alive, so that our life experience on the purely
physical plane will have resonance within our own inner most being and
reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.
Dialogue
between Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers,
The Power of Myth
Our faith draws us together this day. Let us trust enough to open our
ears and our hearts.
We have heard of God’s miracles in
other times; our ancestors have kept the story alive for us.
Give ear, all people, to God’s word for today. Taste the bounty of God’s
blessing here and now.
We long for a faith that makes sense
today. We want to keep the story alive for new generations.
God’s revelation is for all people, near and far. God is waiting to
communicate with you and me.
May God have mercy on us and all
people. Surely God’s will shall be made known to us.
●
Lavon Bayler
top of page
September 21, 2008
We are lost in the
wilderness, O God; we thirst and hunger for thee.
Our lips are
parched with silence; our souls dried up.
In the desert of
hopelessness we tread through the hot sands
of human
degradation. Wandering on the still lethargic
prairies of apathy,
thy people are lost.
Through the sins of
our existence we have become alienated from thee.
Yet it has been
through our earthly oppression that we have found
thee in closeness. Deliver thy people, O God;
save us from destruction.
For it is by our
faith that we shall be rescued;
And we shall freely
drink from thine oasis of love.
●
Psalm 149, Benjamin
Chavis, Jr.
In my dreams, I walk among the ruins of the old part of town
looking for a bit of stale bread. My mother and I inhale the fumes of
gunpowder. I imagine it to be the smell of pies, cakes, and kebab.
A shot rings out from a nearby hill. We hurry. Though it’s only nine
o’clock, we might be hurrying toward a grenade marked “ours.”
An explosion rings out in the street of dignity. Many people are
wounded – sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers. I reach out to touch a
trembling, injured hand. I touch death itself. Terrified, I realize
this is not a dream. It is just another day in Sarajevo.
●
Edina, 12, from
Sarajevo
Moses dwelt in the
desert with those around him. He grew vigilant, watching a
Movement by which he
deserted himself. Many not as active as he languished without their
former comforts and hiding places. They could not leave. When they
were hungry, manna fell from heaven, and they were fed; but a disquiet
robbed them of a vision of the miracle. There was only deprivation and
their unforsaken greed. They lived for a promise and a dream, oblivious
to the holy place of their passage.
●
David
Applebaum
So let us prepare to eat and drink as Jesus taught us: inviting the
stranger to our table and welcoming the poor. May their absence serve
to remind us of the divisions this Eucharist seeks to heal. And may
their presence help transform us into the Body of Christ we share.
●
Adapted from the
Didache
top of page
September 14, 2007
Why is it, O sea, that you flee?
O Jordan, that you turn back?
O mountains, that you skip like rams?
Oh hill, like lambs?
Tremble, O earth, at the presence of God,
at the presence of the God of Jacob,
who turns the rock into a pool of water,
the flint into a spring of water.
Psalm 114:5-8
Crashing Waters at
Creation
Crashing Waters at creation
ordered by the spirit’s breath,
First to witness day’s beginning
from the brightness of night’s death.
Parting water stood and trembled,
as the captives passed on through,
Washing off the chains of bondage—
channel to a life made new.
Cleansing water once at Jordan
closed around the One foretold,
Opened to reveal the glory
ever new and ever old.
Living water, never ending,
quench the thirst and flood the soul.
Wellspring, source of life eternal.
drench our dryness, make us whole.
Sylvia G. Dunstan
top of page
September 7, 2008
In the beginning, the Arctic Inuit people say, Raven made the world.
Afterward Raven decided to stick around for he didn’t know everything there
was to know and was curious about the people and animals. One day while
paddling his kayak, Raven saw a large whale. When the whale yawned, he rowed
into the cavernous mouth. From deep within came a sound like a drum of
thunder. Raven de-kayaked, walking until he came to the whale’s belly, the
ribs rising up around him like pillars.
-- Rich Heffern (TO BE CONTINUED…)
● ● ● ●
● ● ● ●
A memory from my town, Sighet: Our Seder table was never without a stranger.
I remember that we went forth from one synagogue to the other, from one
house of study to the other, looking for a stranger without whom our holiday
would be incomplete. And this was true of most Jews in my town and probably
of most Jews in other towns. On Passover even, the poor, the uprooted, the
unhappy were the most sought over, the most beloved guests. It was for them
and with them that we recited: “This year we are still slaves. Next year may
we all be free.” Without comforting our impoverished guest, our riches would
shame us. And so we were grateful to him. In some towns, before Passover,
Jews would raise funds discreetly: One by one they would enter a room in the
community house. There they would find a dish filled with money. Those who
had money left some; those who needed money took some. No one knew how much
was given or how much was taken. Thus, the needy were cared for with
dignity.
- Elie Wiesel
● ● ● ●
● ● ● ●
In every generation each man is obliged to see himself as though he went out
of Egypt. In every generation every woman is obliged to see herself as
though she went out from Egypt…
- E.M. Broner & Naomi Nimrod
top of page
August 31, 2008
Fire is the first and final mask of my
God.
● Nikos
Kazantzakis
INYAN WASICUM WAKAN – the Holy White Stone Man –
that’s what we call Moses. He appeals to us.
He goes up all alone to the top of his mountain
like an Indian, to have his vision, be all alone with his God, who talks
to him through fire, bushes and rocks.
●
Lame Deer
You are a fire always burning but
never consuming; you are a fire consuming in your heat all the soul’s
selfish love; you are a fire lifting all chill and giving light.
In your light you have made me know
your truth.
You are the light beyond all light
who gives the mind’s eye
supernatural light in such fullness
and perfection that you
bring clarity even to the light of
faith.
In that faith I see that my soul
has life,
and in that light receives you who
are Light.
● Catherine of
Siena
In the fires of L.A. [spring 1992], God is offering the community of
faith another burning bush experience. In Exodus the burning bush caught
hold of Moses’ attention so that Moses could hear God saying that it is the
world that sets God’s agenda. [Exodus 3] is very clear: I have witnessed
the misery of my people; I have heard them crying out because of their
oppressors; I know what they are suffering; and I have come to rescue them
out of the hands of the Egyptians, to bring them out of that country and
into a new land that flows with milk and honey.
The fires of L.A. are the fires of frustration and pain and misery and
oppression. They are an indication of the frustration of millions of people
who cut across the lines of class and color, if we want to hear it . . . we
must listen to the burning bush. To do otherwise would be to squander God’s
grace.
●
James Lawson
top of page
August 24, 2008
A prophet is one who speaks for the deity. The prophet sees into and
beyond current events and conveys a message to the people from the deity.
The people must determine whether the prophet is true or false, to be
honored as divinely inspired or to be ignored.
1) Some prophets
were diviners who would identify the meaning of present actions by reading
the state of the liver of a sacrificed animal, the location of the stars, or
the casting of lots.
2) Some were miracle workers, who by the power of the deity were able to
change the situation, heal the sick, or produce extraordinary conditions.
Elisha was remembered as a miracle worker. Some of these prophets made use
of incantatory rituals, capitalizing on the inexplicable power of words to
connect the divine and the human.
3) Some prophets
spoke, sang, or declaimed while in some kind of induced ecstasy. The story
of the prophets of Baal and Asherah indicates self-mutilation as one form of
inducing ecstasy. While in ecstasy, the prophet’s extraordinary words bring
wisdom to the people. Such prophets were literally beside themselves.
4) The ancient world made considerable use of oracles. A suppliant would
come to the deity’s shrine searching for answers, and the oracle would speak
the answer from the gods. Sometimes a second person, one who interpreted
the message of the oracle, was involved, especially when the oracle, such as
the sibyls, spoke in riddles or gibberish.
5) Visionaries or
seers, with or without trance states, were able to see and understand more
than the ordinary person. In classical literature, some of these seers were
described as driven mad by the horrors they foresaw and by the people’s
refusal to believe.
6) Some prophets interpreted dreams as metaphoric vehicles of divine
will.
7) Some prophets
were revered sages who embodied the wisdom tradition in their person.
8) Some prophets were employed as court appointees, serving the
monarch’s desires. Understandably, some court prophets spoke to the ruler
in such a way as to keep their posts.
9) Some prophets
were social critics who analyzed the community’s distress as brought on by
the people themselves, their immorality, their lack of communal care. In
the biblical record, some prophets courageously speak social justice
directly to the king.
Prophets were highly revered, at least after their death. The overall
theme of all prophetic messages was positive. Although many prophets
decried something in the current situation, the prophet usually promised
that God will forgive, God will renew, God will speak mercy, healing,
victory. Something better will come in the future . . . .
The Jewish tradition designated Moses as the greatest prophet . . . .
-- from Gail Ramshaw,
Treasures Old and new: Images in the Lectionary
top of page
August 17, 2008
top of page
August 10, 2008
Jesus’ miracle of walking on the sea is not just to “show off” who he is
but to come to the aid of his threatened disciples. That is to say,
while the story is indeed talking about who Jesus is, it emphasizes his
function rather than his nature. As Messiah he is the one charged and
empowered by God to shepherd and care for God’s people.
● Douglas R. A. Hare
Comfortless, helpless, and forsaken, we are altogether undone. O God,
thou wilt not leave our hope.
●
Martin Luther
Lord Jesus our God / Who called people from their daily work / Saying to
them, “Come ye after me,” / May your children today hear your voice /
And gladly answer your call / To give their lives to you / To serve your
Church / And give their hearts / To you only. / Bless their hopes / The
first tiny stirrings of desire / The little resolve to go forward / The
small vision of what might be.
Deal gently with their fears / The hesitation of uncertainty / The
darkness of the unknown / The lack of confidence in their own capacity /
And turn it all to trust in you.
● Gabrielle Hadington
Give me to be in Your presence, God, even though I know it only as
absence.
● May Sarton
To be joyful out on 70,000 fathoms of water, many, many miles from all
human help – yes, that is something great! To swim in the shallows in
the company of waders is not the religious.
●
Soren Kierkegaard
top of page
August 3, 2008
Both were wounded: Jacob at the hip, the angel in his vanity. Yet they
parted friends, or was it accomplices? Jacob accepted his aggressor’s departure
willingly; the latter, as if to thank him, made him a gift: a new name which for
generations to come would symbolize eternal struggle and endurance, in more than
one land, during more than one night. At dawn Jacob was a different man.
Whatever he touched caught fire. His words acquired a new resonance; he now
expressed himself as a visionary, a poet.
■ Elie Wiesel
What struck me about that story at that time of great family turmoil was
that Jacob was wounded wrestling with God and in the process all the names that
has worked before left him and he was given a new one. That was what was
happening to me. I felt terribly wounded, and all the neat categories that had
ordered my existence to that point dissolved, and I was faced with chaos. I was
desperate in need of new names, and although I longed to do it, I couldn’t take
a few weeks off, flee to some place of retreat to confront what I was going
through and there discover the new order, and be given the new names. I had to
come up with the new names there and then, in the midst of getting the boys off
to school, working at Union Seminary, visiting Peggy in the hospital, trying to
find ways of talking about illness to a six year old, doing the dishes, shopping
for school clothes, picking up at birthday parties, talking endlessly to
everyone, exhausted. . . . And I needed the names, -- because I was anxious,
frightened, bitter, and angry, badly wounded and limping.
■ Linda Clark
I had a book of Bible stories when I was a kid. There was a picture I’d look
at twenty times every day: Jacob wrestles with the angel. I don’t really
remember the story, or why the wrestling – just the picture. Jacob is young and
very strong. The angel is . . . a beautiful man, with golden hair and wings, of
course. I still dream about it. Many nights. I’m . . . it’s me. In that
struggle. Fierce, and unfair. The angel is not human, and it holds nothing
back, so could anyone human win, what kind of a fight is it? It’s not just.
Losing means your soul thrown down in the dust, your heart torn out from God’s.
But you can’t not lose.
■ Tony Kushner, “Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches”
May we realize that God’s blessing upon us – that for which we have
wrestled, some of us so long, and so fiercely – is that we be empowered to
welcome and bless those who, like Jacob, indeed, like most of us, do not
deserved to be blessed.
■ Carter Heyward
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This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond
one’s tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing
and unconditional love for all people. This often misunderstood and
misinterpreted concept has now become an absolute necessity for human survival.
When I speak of love, I am speaking of that force which all the great religions
have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is the key that
unlocks the door that leads to ultimate reality. This
Hindu-Moslem-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is
beautifully summed up in the First Epistle of Saint John: “Let us love one
another: for love is of God: and every one that loveth is born of God, and
knoweth God.”
Gandhi was probably the first person in history to lift the love ethic of
Jesus above mere interaction to a powerful and effective social force on a large
scale. Love for Gandhi was a potent instrument for social and collective
transformation.
The way of violence leads to bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the
destroyers. But the way of nonviolence leads to redemption and the creation of
the beloved community. . . .
We have inherited a large house, a great “world house” in which we have to
live together – black and white, Easterner and Westerner, Gentile and Jew,
Catholic and Protestant, Muslim and Hindu – a family unduly separated in ideas,
culture and interest, who, because we can never again live apart, must learn
somehow to live with each other in peace.
We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now . . . We may cry out
desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and
rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous
civilizations are written the pathetic words: “Too late.” . . . We still have a
choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation.
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Yet shall I temper so
justice with mercy.
-- John Milton
The German philosopher Theodor Adorno wrote in his book “Minima
Moralia” about how when the Brown Shirts, the Nazis, really started
appearing on the streets of Berlin, he was embarrassed by his immature
reaction. He was a grown man, but the thugs kept reminding him of the
bullies from his childhood. He thinks, “How ridiculous. These are
criminals, so why do they keep making me think about school kids?” Then
he realizes, of course, these are the people those bullies grew into.
It’s an absolutely appropriate association, and it’s one of the
things I love about “Brundibar.” The story is about two little kids
standing up to a mean teenage boy, but you understand it as: That’s
where the battle against injustice begins, in the schoolyard. Are you
going to be one of those kids who picks on other kids, are you going to
be one of those kids who runs every time somebody picks on you, or are
you going to be one of those kids who even if you’re scared says, “You
can’t do that to me”? That’s where politics begins.
-- Tony Kushner, co-author with Maurice Sendak,
“Brundibar”
He had never thought himself a great sinner before but he saw now
that his true depravity had been hidden from him lest it cause despair.
He realized that he was forgiven for sins from the beginning of time,
when he had conceived in his own heart the sin of Adam, until the
present, when he had denied poor Nelson. He saw that no sin was too
monstrous for him to claim as his own, and since God loved in proportion
as God forgave, he felt ready at that instant to enter Paradise.
-- Flannery O’Connor
The heart’s reasons / seen clearly, / even the hardest / will carry
its whip-marks and sadness / and must be forgiven. . . .
So few grains of happiness / measured against all the dark
and still the scales balance.
The world asks of us / only the strength we have and we give it.
Then it asks for more, and we give it.
-- Jane Hirshfield, “The Weighing”
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The “rest” Jesus promises summons u the image of the eschatological rest
in the days of the Messiah, of which the Sabbath rest was a symbol and a
foretaste. Paradoxically, Jesus’ “rest” was also a kind of “yoke,” a symbol
used by the rabbis for the Mosaic law. . . . Central to the yoke or law of
Jesus. . . . is Jesus himself. . . . The spiritual rest Jesus gives comes
from assimilating and living Jesus’ attitudes, indeed, his very person.
● John Meier
Now I lay me down to sleep, / I pray thee, God, thy child to keep;
Thy love go with me all the night, / and wake me with the morning
light.
● Traditional English Child’s Even Prayer
“Come Unto Me” – Eucharistic Prayer from Matthew 11 & Wisdom Texts
For Wisdom is true to her name. / Put your feet into her fetters,
and your neck into her collar; / Offer your shoulder to her burden,
do not be impatient of her bonds.
Court her with all your soul, / and with all your might keep in her ways;
search for her, track her down: she will reveal
herself: once you hold her, do not let her go.
For in the end you will find rest in her / and she will take the form
of joy for you:
Her fetters you will find a mighty defense, / Her yoke will be a
golden ornament.
Jesus said, “Come unto me, all you who / labor and are overburdened.
and I will give you rest; shoulder / my yoke and learn from me,
for I am gentle and humble in / heart, and you will find rest for your
souls.
“Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden is light”
● Susan Cady, Marian Ronan, Hal Taussig
The lone, wild bird, in lofty flight, / Is still with Thee, nor leaves
Thy sight.
And I am Thine! I rest in Thee. / Great Spirit come, and rest in me.
The ends of the earth are in Thy hand, / The sea’s dark deep and far-off
land.
And I am Thine, I rest in Thee! / Great Spirit come, and rest in me.
●
Henry Richard McFaden
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