Sermon from Sunday, July 2, 2017

Reading: Genesis 2:15-17; 3:22-24
Theme:  Looking for The Garden

I came upon a child of God
He was walking along the road
And I asked him, where are you going
And this he told me

I’m goin’ on down to Yasgur’s farm

I’m going to join in a rock-n-roll band

I’ve got to get back to the land

I’m going to try and get my soul free
We are stardust
We are golden
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

These words are the first verse to a song Joni Mitchell wrote almost 50 years ago about Woodstock – one of my generation’s attempts to get back to The Garden.  The song is bigger than that, though, because it seems to come from and speak to a larger and more universal longing than just that one event.

The Garden – capital T, capital G – is something deep in the human psyche as an image of something that’s been lost, something we have lost or thrown away, something we deeply miss as we seek refuge – a safe place to be, a placed where we can feel good and be good together beyond our own sin and shame, in the world as it is.

The Garden in that sense is a universal myth – an image that we and other people of vastly different cultures and faith traditions, carry within us about how the world is created to be, how maybe it once was, how it is not now, but maybe still can be at times.

I’m not even a gardener, and I can appreciate this.  Even I feel the lure of the garden and the way it quiets and satisfies something deep within.  Many of you are gardeners – very good ones, and Winona as a place to be has a feel of garden about it.  So you know what I mean.  You live it.  I’ve no doubt you love it – love whatever time you can have in your garden – whether it’s an orchard out behind the house, a vegetable patch, a perennial and annual flower garden surrounding the house you live in, or a little cluster of plants you lovingly tend and enjoy in your house or apartment.

All of these little, individual gardens we enjoy for ourselves are just part of The Garden – capital T, capital G again, The Garden that’s more common and communal, The Garden that’s even global in its size and meaning, The Garden that all of humanity deeply longs to be in as one, enjoying together the goodness of life, the fruitfulness and fullness of Earth, and the endless love and blessing of God for all that is.

Of all the pictures we have seen of the Assad family over the last year and then especially the last few months – of them in hiding in Syria, then hiding but more safe in Beirut, then arriving at the airport in Toronto and being in their new home in Grimsby for the first time with their sponsors and new friends, I think the one picture that touched me the most was of their two children at play on a play structure in a playground in a park right behind their new home. 

That picture more than any made me feel happy and hopeful for them, because that was a picture of their children in The Garden – safe and free in a place in the world that they don’t need to earn or deserve or pay their way in, no doubt bearing the memory and the scars of human sin and evil, but at the same time able to gather with other children and adults of all colours and castes and creeds, open to the heavens and to sun and sky of God’s blessing, each one clothed with signs of God’s endless love for all, every one free to grow in their own way, everyone there free to reach out, love and be loved by others around them.

And isn’t that what The Garden is in our deep sub-conscious, in our archetypal human memory of what life really is, in the holy stories of our own and other people’s religious and spiritual traditions?

I’m happy and proud to be able to say as well that this same vision – this same hope of knowing and living with others in The Garden at least in some way and some time in the world as it is, is also very much part of what Canada is, or at least aspires and tries at its best to be.

Just three quick images from what I saw in yesterday’s all-day TV coverage of the national celebration.  I’m sure each of you has at least that many and more that stand out for you, but these three are among the ones that caught me.

One, from Parliament Hill, is of the teepee of re-occupation that was erected, then resisted, then moved far off to the side, and then moved in closer to the Peace Tower where it became a place of dialogue, of education and sensitization, and of peaceful face-to-face conversation between First Nations and other people of Canada.

A second was from PEI, and a band of young First Nations singers and dancers drawn from every province and territory of the country, offering a song they wrote themselves about their hopes for their future and Canada’s future, their smiles as they sang and danced, and the closing line about coming together now after 150 years with the confident assertion that “this time we’ll get it right.”

A third was a little video montage of individual persons from all over the country of a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds, each singing one line at a time of “O Canada” in their native languages that include Mic-Maq, Ukrainian, Cree, Chinese, Inuit, German, Spanish, French, English and I can’t even remember what others.

Isn’t that what The Garden is?  That way of being in the world – that way of being a world, where you and I and all others of all colours, castes and creeds … are able to gather in safety and freedom …not needing to earn it or deserve it or pay their way in … open to the heavens, to the sun and the sky … aware of human evil, sinfulness and shame … but every one clothed in signs of of God’s endless love of all that is … everyone free to grow in their own way … everyone free to reach out, to love and to be loved by others around them?

Happy Canada Day weekend. 

And even more, happy are they anywhere in the world, who know The Garden in some way in their lives – who are able to know it and enjoy it in the midst of their own sin and shame, and in the midst of the world as it is … and who are able to share it, and invite others into it, to know and enjoy it with them!

We are stardust
We are golden
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden