Scripture: Psalm 19
Sermon: Lifting the Veil (or maybe, Cleaning My Ears)
The heavens
are telling the glory of God,
and the firmament
proclaims God’s handiwork.
I
had a phone message Friday morning from a fellow minister in Dundas. He and I have been working together on and
off for the past 4 or 5 years to try to sort out a particular problem for
Presbytery, and he phoned to tell me of the latest piece of work that was
submitted, and the hope that we are just about done. And then he added, “And I trust you saw the
rainbow over Dundas this morning -- a wonderful complete arc from the
escarpment on one end, to the other edge of the city on the other.”
I
didn’t. I got his message a half-hour
after he left it. During the time of the
rainbow I had been either sleeping or closed into my study working on something
or other. And I imagine my day and my
awareness of the grace of God through the day were all the poorer for not
having seen the rainbow that had been there.
Day to day
pours forth speech;
and night to
night declares knowledge.
There
have been a lot of unusually severe storms this summer, and Pete Rainford
captured a photograph of the clouds gathering and churning in the sky before
one of them. It’s an awesome image of
the power of the elements, and with his permission that image was used on the
screen in our summer worship to help us imagine the power and might of the
Creator. It was the image to which we
sang the opening words of “All Things Bright and Beautiful” -- all creatures
great and small, all things wise and wonderful, in love God made them
all.”
Because
… when we call to mind the opening verses of the creation story, the first
verses of the Bible -- “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the
earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep,
while a wind from God swept over the waters” -- what else can we think of but
immense darkly churning storm clouds?
And I’m sure my life, as well as my faith are richer for having seen
storms, for having seen lightning flash and heard thunder crash and rumble.
There is no
speech, nor are there words;
their voice is
not heard;
yet their
voice goes out through all the earth,
and their
words to the end of the world.
And
as the psalm goes on, what it calls to our attention and celebrates are two
ways we come to know God and grow in our knowledge of God. One way is through Creation -- the life of
the heavens and of Earth, and our paying attention to it; the other is the law
-- the commands and decrees that come to us through our religious tradition,
and our learning from them.
The
point of both is to live well on Earth and in right relation to it. That’s the point of any honest attention to
Earth and its systems of life. I think
we used to think the point of science was to allow us to control and manipulate
the earth to our convenience, but I think we’re getting over that now.
That’s
also the point of God’s law and our obedience to it. I think we used to think God’s law was
something we needed to fulfill to make it into heaven. But more and more we’re coming to see that the
purpose of the law is to help us create good and just community on Earth and to
live in right relation with other people and other creatures around us.
And
with two ways of being steered in this direction -- two ways of coming to know
God’s ways and of growing our knowledge of God’s good will, it’s as though we
have something for each of our ears to listen, as we try to shape our one heart
and life. With one ear, we listen to
what the heavens and Earth tell us, day to day and night to night. With the other ear, we listen to what the law
of God tells us, from ages past and in a variety of religious traditions. And as we put the two together in our one,
single heart, we’re led to live one single good life all together as it’s meant
to be lived.
I
have a brother-in-law on Japhia’s side who has spent all his life within the
Christian church in one form or another, in ministry of one kind or
another. He has spent years in study,
immersing himself in ancient and traditional religious wisdom. He has gathered and engaged in intentional
community, teaching and learning with others what it means to live in right
relation and to help create justice and peace.
He has been in dialogue with people of other traditions -- Jewish, Muslim,
aboriginal. He leads retreats and writes
books for the benefit of leading others into journeys of their own.
And
it seems to me his deepest spiritual practice right now, and the way he most
consistently and intimately connects with the Divine Presence in the world is
by walking. When he is at home he spends
hours walking the glens of central Scotland.
When he is away, he walks wherever he happens to be, whether it’s the
desert or Dundas. He makes intentional
pilgrimages through the mountains of Spain and takes others with him. And in this way -- already well-versed in
Scripture and theology and a variety of spiritual traditions, he opens himself
-- maybe opens his other ear, to the life and good will and life-rhythms of God
to be learned in creation.
I
have another brother-in-law on my side.
He’s a little closer to home for me.
He grew up in rural Manitoba and in a United Church. He and my sister now live in Burlington,
where they attended a nearby United Church while their son was growing up. Now that he’s away from home, they’ve also
drifted a bit from that church -- but not from spirituality and from growing in
their knowledge of God and of how to live in right relation on Earth.
Both,
for example, maintain good relationships with a variety of people from
different times in their live. They
practice a moderate level of charitable work in the community. And Jim, more specifically, has spent some
time in the practice of Tai Chi, to come to know the rhythms and the movement
of his own body. He also is learning to
turn wood in his basement workshop. He’s
learned to identify different kinds of wood and its characteristics, to attend
to the twists and turns of different grains and to weak spots and strong spots. He’s learning, in a sense, to listen to the
wood’s personality, and to work with it to make something good and beautiful of
it -- and in the process, of himself as well.
And I cannot but think that in all of this he knows something deep of
God and of whole and holy living.
And
me? The one between them? The one who’s an ordained minister of a
congregation, engaged every week in the religious work of a church?
I
tend to listen a lot with one ear to the law of God -- to what comes to us from
our own and other religious traditions.
But I’m not so good in the other ear. It’s a little bit blocked, I think. I live a little more disconnected from Earth
and its systems and rhythms of life. I
walk the dog every morning, come rain or come shine. I putz around in our herb garden every now
and then. But beyond that …?
I
do remember, though, a few summers ago … the first two weeks of my vacation,
when I was feeling especially tired, frustrated and disillusioned about
myself. Japhia was still at work at the
seniors program, so she was away from morning to late afternoon. And the routine I adopted for those first two
weeks of my vacation was somewhat Benedictine in its balance and order.
After
seeing Japhia off to work, I spent the morning doing some manual labour -- each
day picking some job in the yard or house that took a few hours to finish. Near noon I stopped for lunch. After lunch and cleaning up, I spent the
afternoon sitting outside on the back deck -- reading, thinking, writing,
looking at the escarpment behind our house, enjoying the sun crossing the sky
overhead, feeling whatever breeze there might be that day, listening to the
children playing in the park just across the street from us. Then Japhia would come home from work, we’d
make and have supper, and have a nice evening together.
Those
two weeks were one of the most restorative times I have known, and the balance
of manual labour and spiritual reflection, both practiced in openness to Earth
and its systems of life, was one of the deepest spiritual practices I have
found. I emerged from those two weeks
healed and made whole, with a clarity of spirit and life renewed within me.
Psalm
19 ends with this prayer:
Let the words
of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable
to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
It’s
a prayer for singleness of purpose in our heart and for God’s one wisdom to be
lived out in all that we say and do, no matter where we are. And when we learn to listen with both ears to
all that we can about life as God has created it to be -- one ear listening
closely to the rhythms and life systems of the heavens and of Earth, and the
other listening carefully to the teachings and truths of our religious
traditions, we stand a far better chance of that prayer for right living to be
answered for us and in us.
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