Opening Focus:
It’s the week after the Labour Day weekend. So, happy new year. And we wonder what this year will bring.
We’re unsure about it, aren’t we? Everything these days seems so unknown, not guaranteed, a real journey of faith. With that in mind, Linda, our liturgical imaginator and decorator, has created a focus for reflection in the sanctuary.
Here’s how she described it by email:
I’ve just set things up in the sanctuary. I have placed an old church window at the centre below the pulpit. Behind it, I have placed a battery-operated candle (one is not enough, so I will be back with more). [I see there are three now … nicely trinitarian!]
Going on the themes of light (with the candles) … not knowing for sure what lies beyond the door … returning to normal, but what normal?
I thought that the opaque glass of the window represents us not knowing what is in store for us as we return. But the Light still shows through the window.
A question: what’s the window, through which we “see darkly” (to use Paul’s words from I Corinthians 13)? How are the light and the mystery of God’s presence, good will and love transmitted to us?
Over the next three weeks, our worship is focused on three things through which we come to know and experience God’s saving presence in our lives. The first of the three and the focus of this service and sermon, is relationships we have with others.
Reading: Ecclesiastes 4: 7-12
The Book of Ecclesiastes is one of
the Wisdom Books in the Hebrew Bible – what we call The Old Testament. The author of the book knows that life isn’t
always fair, and that good and bad things happen to people quite randomly. But the author also sees that through it all,
it is always possible to enjoy the love and goodness of God. In the passage we read today, the author
focuses on the gift of other people.
I have noticed something else in life that is useless.
Here is a man who lives alone.
He has no children, no siblings,
and yet he is always working, never satisfied with the wealth he has.
For whom is he working so hard, and denying himself of pleasure?
This is useless, and a miserable way to live.
Two are better off than one, because together they can work more effectively.
If one falls down, the other can help him or her up.
But if someone is alone and falls, it’s really too bad
because there is no one to help him or her up.
If it’s cold, two can lie together and stay warm,
but how can you keep warm by yourself?
Two persons can stand up to an attack
that would defeat one person alone.
And a threefold cord – a rope made of three cords – is hard to break.
Reflection
Recently there’s been a series of TV commercials for Expedia, the travel-booking website. They tell the story of a young woman journeying alone to wine country – a valley of vineyards.
In the first scene, she just misses her flight, is left behind, and finds herself flopping dejectedly on a small bed in a sardine-can of a hotel room somewhere, until another woman – Expedia, of course, in oversized yellowish shirt and black pants appears at her door, smiles gently, says “I got you,” and snaps her fingers to transform the poor room into luxury art-nouveau accommodation.
Next, the young woman is looking forward to a vineyard tour she has booked, when she looks at her phone and sees a forecast of thunderstorms for the day. Her long-awaited day is washed out. Until Expedia appears at her side, says “I got you”, and turns the day into a joyful tandem bike ride where the rain don’t fall.
In the third scene, a day of sightseeing in the city becomes a confusing, overwhelming and scary jumble of jolts and jabs from an uncaring crowd of the “beautiful people,” until Expedia appears at the young woman’s elbow to guide her skillfully and quickly out of danger, and once again – “I’ve got you” – turn the day into a soulful delight.
The ads are brilliant. Two things are genius about them. One is the soundtrack – a remake of the Eric Carmen song: “All by myself; don’t wanna be all by myself."
The other is that they give Expedia a face. Expedia becomes a real person just like you, only better, who is with and on your side. Expedia is not a company or organization. Not a network, nor a website, nor an operator at the other end of a phone call. Expedia is a friend who is near at hand, who appears as soon as you stumble and fall, and says, “I got you.”
Moving from TV to radio, this week I heard part of a podcast interview with some survivors of Lytton, B.C. – the first and biggest casualty of the forest fires that ravaged south-central BC this summer. Two months ago, the town went up in flames one day in about a half-hour. Literally in minutes, almost everyone lost almost all they had. The town is still just a pile of rubble, possibly too toxic for anyone to begin to rebuild for some time yet.
The people
are living wherever they can with whatever little they carried out the door –
in motels, with friends, one family of four in a fifth wheel in a family
member’s driveway in a nearby town.
Their lives are still in pieces.
Near the end of the piece, one couple talks about their struggles, and
their closing words are, “It’s day by day, and we don’t know how it will all
turn out. But we’ll be okay. We have family and friends behind us. We have a whole community in this with us.”
Two are better off than one…
If one falls down, the other can help him or her up…
If it’s cold, two can lie together and stay warm …
Two persons can stand up to an attack that would defeat one person alone…
And then, that last line with the unexpected twist – the enigmatic addition at the end:
And a threefold cord – a rope made of three cords – is hard to break.
One commentator I read this week says, “Notice the increase in number from two to three. The more friends the better. The picture of the three cords woven together is a beautiful picture of what real friendship is. Perhaps each of us needs to take time and reflect about the quality, or lack thereof, of our friendships…” and of our willingness to be a friend for others who need us to be the face and the helper near at hand to say those magic words, “I got you.”
Others see something else than just more friends in that last line, and in the change from two to three. Some see, and know from experience, that when two choose to be woven together, a third cord appears in their union and inter-wovenness that is God.
Not God, far off in some distant heaven, receiving and answering myriad prayers and calls for help with super-lightning speed like Bruce Almighty answering floods of emails on a heavenly computer.
Nor God, like a patriarchal king high and lifted up, receiving pleas and petitions from below, and every now and then with royal privilege deciding to intervene.
But God, as Paul
Stookey sings in The Wedding Song:
He is now to be among you at the calling of your hearts
Rest assured this troubadour is acting on His part
The union of your spirits, here, has caused Him to remain
For whenever two or more of you are gathered in His name
There is Love, there is Love …
… And if loving is the answer, then who’s the giving for?
Do you believe in something that you’ve never seen before?
This is God, alive and coming to life in and through relationships that emerge and are created between people. The genius – not of the Expedia ads this time, but of the Gospel, is that God is near at hand, comes with a human face, and comes to life in and though relationships of love, mutual support, care, and generosity of spirit. In and through relationships that are long-term and lifelong. And in and through relationships that are momentary, one-off connection or contact at an especially critical time.
The mystery of God and the strengthening presence of God become real and part of our life, as people come together for good purpose. And when I say people, I mean people like family and friends. I mean people like neighbours and strangers. I also mean people like enemies, because when Jesus utters his famous “when two or three are gathered in my name,” he is talking about people at odds who come together for reconciliation.
It’s about relationship with anyone in need of someone willing to be there and say, “I got you.” And, whether it’s us reaching out to connect with someone else, or someone else reaching in to be with us, all of us in one way or another who have the ears to hear, hear the speaking of that sacred and healing promise: “I got you.”
As we say in
A New Creed of our church, “We are not alone.
Thanks be to God.”
Two
questions to ponder
• Who is in your life
right now – who is really and actually present and near to
you right now? What do you admire, need,
count on, cherish about them? Give
thanks to God.
• Who is missing from your life – either lost along the way, or ignored and passed by? Name them, hold them in your hand, and lift them to God. And listen, then, to what God says.
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