september 27, 2009

Anna Blaedel
First UMC, Osage
September 27, 2009

“I praise the fall,” wrote Archibal McLeash, “for it is the human season.”

“I praise the fall, for it is the human season.”

Yesterday morning, people gathered in this same place to celebrate Dorcas Ask’s 91 years of living and loving, and now, to mourn her passing. A life lived fully, sustained through many seasonal shifts. We read those familiar words from Ecclesiastes during her service: For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to throw away; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.

This passage from Ecclesiastes is not part of this morning’s lectionary cycle, but I believe it speaks to this morning’s lectionary texts.

The lectionary readings from Mark for these autumn days are sobering. They match the season, it seems, of leaves falling from trees—green to gold to fiery red, and then, to brown. Of flowers fading. Of corn and beans drying up, ready for plucking up what has been planted, as the scripture says. The first frost hasn’t come, but it will, soon, and even though we know it’s coming, it will surprise the senses. Signal a shift.

I brought out my winter coat Friday night, in order to stay warm at the Homecoming football game. I appreciated staying warm. I did not appreciate that I needed my winter coat in order to stay warm. I know September signals a shift in seasons. I know autumn is upon us, and that winter is not too far away. And, I’m not quite ready to admit that it is real. It took the band marching down the street earlier in the day, a parade I had forgotten about, but heard through my open window, it took trumpets and drums and a gathering community to help me look. And see. And understand. The beauty and joy and celebration that is as much a part of this shifting season as falling leaves and winter coats. I suppose the disciples needed a marching band, too. To startle them just enough that they start paying attention. Sometimes even religious leaders and the faithful elect can forget to pay attention.

In Mark, we see Jesus—this teacher and prophet, the very child of God—whom no one understands. Jesus is speaking of the cross, of death, and of resurrection, but the people who are around to hear him haven’t a clue what he means. They were absorbed in their own little worlds, and this new message made no sense. Life was hard, and would soon be over. They knew about death. They knew about death, it seems, more than they knew about life, and how to live. Death is real, Jesus says, and it is coming. But life is real, too. Resurrection is real. Spring is real, the promise is real. And it is coming, too.

The disciples don’t have ears to hear it. They are too busy arguing over who is the greatest. Jesus overhears them, and asks what they were arguing about. The disciples are suddenly silent. Imagine that awkward pause. How would you feel if you had to admit to Jesus that what you had been disputing on the journey to his passion was who was greatest among you? How trivial. How unimportant. How petty. How, well, human.

Jesus has just told them what is unfolding, what lies ahead of them—his betrayal by human hands, his coming death, the promise that not even death ahs the power to overcome life, and that resurrection is real. He offers the disciples a warning, lets them look into a crystal ball and glimpse the future, invites them to shift course and do it differently. They don’t get it. Because they are scared. Because they are busy, and their focus is somewhere else. Because, perhaps, they feel powerless to do it any differently. Powerless against the forces of destruction and death.

This morning’s scripture from James enters into the disciples’ dispute. Who among us is greatest, they ask? Who is wise and understanding among you, James asks? The disciples, in arguing over who is greatest, show that none of them is very wise at all. James interrupts them. Stop talking about it. Show. Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness. Envy and selfish ambition will get you nowhere, he writes. Hypocrisy and self-centeredness breed distrust and destruction—the very things contrary to the reign of God, the body of Christ.

Jesus is ushering in a new season. And the disciples don’t even notice. All they have to do is notice! Draw close to God, James writes, and God will draw close to you. That’s all you have to do. Pay attention. See God in the world around you. Give thanks to God. Practice living the gentleness and kindness and compassion that is of God, and God will fill your life. Be wise—which is not to say, Be perfect, or Know everything, or Make sure you’re the greatest, or Tell everyone and everything just how wise you are. True wisdom, scripture tells us, is peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. If you take step after step towards this, resurrection is yours to experience—in this life and in the next.
I recently read an autobiography of a woman I don’t know. It is written in five chapters. Five very short chapters. I want to share it with you.

Chapter 1: I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I fall in. I am lost. I am hopeless. It isn’t my fault. It takes forever to find a way out.

Chapter 2: I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I pretend I don’t see it. I fall in again. I can’t believe I am in the same place. But, it isn’t my fault. It still takes a long time to get out.

Chapter 3: I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I see it is there. I still fall in. It’s a habit. My eyes are open. I know where I am. It is my fault. I get out immediately.

Chapter 4: I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it.

Chapter 5: I walk down another street.

Jesus is inviting the disciples to walk down another street, and to welcome the greatest and the least to join the journey. They’re still stuck somewhere around chapter two. James is inviting them to open their eyes, grow in wisdom, pay attention to the world around them.

This weekend, a group of college students from the Wesley Foundation in Iowa City are somewhere on the Macocoda River, for their Emmaus Retreat. They take this retreat every spring, and every fall. I went on these retreats regularly during my time as a student, and then helped plan and lead these retreats as a peer minister. Each Emmaus retreat offered me the opportunity to stop. To listen. To look. To give thanks to God for the shifting seasons, evidenced all around me. To pay attention to what new reality God was inviting me into. To accept Jesus’ promise of new life, renewed life, restored life—In this life.

Every year, the students planning the retreat invite former students to write “Palancas” to be read on the retreat. Palanca, the Spanish word for lever—meaning, to lift up—to strengthen—to encourage—to share strength, for the journey. They asked me to write a palanca. In my note of encouragement, I shared a paragraph from a scrap of paper I have taped to my bathroom mirror. Perhaps some of you saw it when you toured the parsonage last week at the Open House.

Before living in Osage, this same scrap was taped to my bathroom mirror in San Francisco, and before that, in Berkeley, and before that, in Iowa City. The edges are a bit frayed, the paper worn and wrinkled. And, the words ring as true and as wise as they did the first time I read them. I need this message enough to take it with me, move after move, and to tape it where I’ll see it every day, mirror after mirror. I don’t even remember whose words they are, although I think they might be from Henri Nouwen.

Here is what the scrap of paper reads:

“Often we want to be able to see into the future. We say, “How will next year be for me? Where will I be five or ten years from now?” There are no answers to these questions. Mostly we have just enough light to see the next step: what we have to do in the coming hour or the following day. The art of living is to enjoy what we can see and not complain about what remains in the dark. When we are able to take the next step with the trust that we will have enough light for the step that follows, we can walk through life with joy and be surprised at how far we go. Let’s rejoice in the little light we carry and not ask for the great beam that would take all shadows away.”

The disciples in this morning’s gospel story don’t realize that this light is shining, that in fact, they are walking with the light. James teaches that true wisdom comes from taking step by step, walking in faith. Draw near to God, and God will draw near to you. Look for the light. It will shine in the darkness. Be wise, meaning pay attention. Stop to see the grandeur of God—grandeur and beauty and connection that permeates every season and every time.

The art of living is to enjoy what we can see and not complain about what remains in the dark, waiting. When we are able to take the next step with the trust that we will have enough light for the step that follows, we can walk through life with joy, and be surprised at how far we go. May we rejoice in that little spark of divine light burning within each of us. May we take the next step, knowing God goes with us, and God’s grace is there, wherever there is, already, to meet us. May we pay attention—to the holes we need to walk around, and to the mystery of the shifting seasons, and to the people we need to welcome, and to journey with. “I praise the fall, for it is the human season.” May this unfolding fall season invite us to become more human—wiser, more gentle, peaceable, ready to yield when we need to, fully of mercy and awe and hospitality. And, may we have the wisdom to notice the invitation, and to follow. May it be so. Amen, and amen.