Pentecost
4, Year A, June 12, 2005 Exodus
19:2-8a, Psalm 100, Romans
5:6-11, Matthew 9:35-10:15
The Word is Very Near
You—A Sermon in Song
Deborah Hutchison Lay
Pastoral Associate, St. David's Episcopal Church, Bean Blossom, Indiana
Scripture can be a real challenge. Take today’s
readings for example. The psalm characterizes God as
“good”, possessing boundless mercy and
faithfulness. Both the Epistle and the Gospel speak of God as
wrathful and destructive. The passage from Exodus shows God
playing favorites, declaring to the Israelites, “If you obey
my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out
of all the peoples”.
We do have to keep in mind that the book of Exodus was written by
Israelites. Perhaps they had a vested interest in giving themselves
“most favored nation” status. We also
have to keep in mind that God doesn’t hand out this honor
without requiring something of its recipients. Being
treasured by God depends, it would seem, on listening for
God’s guidance (“if you obey my voice.”)
and on being obedient to that guidance (“if you keep my
covenant.”).
But, I’m still not comfortable with this chosen people
thing. If only some are chosen, what happens to those who are
not? Which group do I belong to? If I’m
not one of the chosen, is there some way I can earn my way into this
“in” group? This all sounds more like
life as I remember it in high school, not like the universally
inclusive realm of God as described, for example, by the prophet Isaiah
in another part of the Bible – the passage about the wolf
lying down with the lamb that ends with, “They will not hurt
or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the
knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” (Isaiah
11:9)
Let’s face it. Biblical scripture is full of contradictions,
and many of these contradictions concern the very nature of
God. I say “Biblical scripture” because,
in my opinion, there are other kinds of scripture, too -- if we define
scripture as being a witness to the presence and character of the Holy
One. God speaks to me of God’s self – if I am
willing and able to listen -- through my Beloved, through my dearest
friends, through my enemies, through nature, through books, through
music, through the daily events – large and small –
of my life. The books of this scripture are as numerous as
the component parts of creation. Meister Eckhart, the great
medieval Christian mystic, wrote “Apprehend God in all
things, for God is in all things. Every creature is full of
God and is a book about God.”
Whatever kind of scripture I am encountering, it all comes down to my
ability to discern God in it. I can be told about God, but
that telling does not become knowing until it resonates with my own
experience. As the writer of the Old Testament Book of
Deuteronomy (30:14) puts it, “No, the word is very near to
you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to
observe.”
I believe God reveals God’s self in an infinite variety of
ways. I believe that God has equipped us with the capacity to
recognize the truth of God’s presence, that this capacity is
an innate part of our being made in the image and likeness of
God. I believe that this capacity – what
I’ve come to call my “God-ometer” --
becomes more sensitive and accurate with use. And I believe
that a big part of our maturing as spiritual beings is our reaching the
point where we are able to make the leap from trusting what we are told
by others about God to trusting what we discern God is speaking
directly to us in our hearts, in our minds, in our lives.
Oddly, coming to trust and depend upon that inner voice and on
discerning the word of God in many places, has not in any way decreased
the importance of the Bible in my walk with God. Far from
it. Now that I’m not preoccupied with making it all
hang together without paradox or contradiction, the Biblical witness
has become a rich and varied resource of information about how my
brothers and sisters in the faith have understood God through the
ages. And, it has come to hold for me amazing and
often surprising opportunities to experience the complex, mysterious,
faith-deepening, life-giving presence of the Holy One, the One who
tells us through the prophet Isaiah that…
My thoughts are not your thoughts. Your ways are not my ways.
My thoughts are not your thoughts. Your ways are not my ways.
Barren Sarah, her life course done conceives, and laughs, and bears a
son.
The mother of nations she has become -- a line that ends with the
Promised One.
My thoughts are not your thoughts. Your ways are not my ways.
My thoughts are not your thoughts. Your ways are not my ways.
Shepherd David becomes a king. The promise made at his
anointing
Is fulfilled when the King of all comes to live with the poor and
small.
My thoughts are not your thoughts. Your ways are not my ways.
My thoughts are not your thoughts. Your ways are not my ways.
Thousands fed with one loaf of bread. Sight for the
blind. Life for the dead.
From water wine. In God's own time the last shall be the
first in line.
The Lord of earth and sea and sky hangs alone on the cross and dies.
From death comes life. How can this be? We must be
born again to see…that
My thoughts are not your thoughts. Your ways are not my ways.
My thoughts are not your thoughts. Your ways are not my ways.
Another way I have experienced
God is in the scripture of absence, that empty place within waiting to
be filled, that hunger in the heart….
There’s a hunger in the heart that no earthly food can fill.
Show me where to start. Place my life within your will.
You invite me to a feast that I cannot see or feel.
Afraid to leave behind the things my mind tells me are real.
I want to trust your word is true; that you won’t leave me
alone.
Your love is calling me to you. Your light will lead me
home.
There’s a hunger in the heart that no earthly food can fill.
Show me where to start. Place my life within your will.
Fill this empty vessel up with your holy mystery.
Let me be a blessing cup so full of love for all I see.
There’s a hunger in the heart that no earthly food can fill.
Show me where to start. Place my life within your will.
Show us where to start. Place our lives within your
will.
The Eucharist, the holy meal of bread
and wine which mirrors for us the feast we cannot see or feel spoken of
in that song, is a way in which God reveals God’s
self. It is both scriptural, in the Biblical sense -- its
form and elements having been taken from the New Testament
witness – and in the experiential sense. It can
satisfy the hunger in the heart, the longing we all feel for the
presence of God. The spiritual food it provides can make of
our emptiness a vessel for that presence and make us bearers of God to
others who may be hungry in Spirit.
There are uncountable ways for us to
encounter God. All creation, as Meister Eckhart said, is
scripture. In this way God shows us that we are surrounded by
God, that God will not abandon us, that when all else passes, even life
itself, God – ground of our being – will still be
there, enfolding us as a Mother holds a beloved child. And,
as another medieval mystic, Julian of Norwich expressed it in her
writings about how God revealed God’s self to her:
All will be well. All will be well. All manner of
thing will be well…
A river runs beneath our feet – living water clear and
deep.
In deserts, hidden streams will keep the Tree of Life
alive.
Send down our roots into the flow and drinking deep of dreams we'll
know:
Though deserts be the way we go we surely will survive
All will be well. All will be well.
All manner of thing will be well.
All will be well. All will be well.
All manner of thing will be well.
We're single threads in a tapestry. The picture's much too
big to see
We must trust that all we're meant to be is woven deep as bone.
The picture's made of all we choose. Sometimes we
win. Sometimes we loose.
But in the end we can't refuse the Love that calls us home.
All will be well. All will be well.
All manner of thing will be well.
All will be well. All will be well.
All manner of thing will be well.