Yesterday was the start of Rosh Hashanah – the opening of the New Year for our spiritual cousins in Judaism – a celebration of all
that is created – especially humankind formed in the image of the Lord. It is a festival filled with feasting on challah bread, apples and honey and pomegranates as well as sacred prayers and deeds of forgiveness, redemption and grace. It is a call to take stock of your life and what it has become in light of God’s image within and among us all.One of my favorite writers, Rabbi Rachel Barenblat, captures some of the sacred beauty of this holy day like this in one of her poems:
Indian summer: fat bees alight
on goldenrod and clover.
The crickets in our backyard
chitter their endless song.
Like the cat, I wouldn't mind
curling up in a patch of sun.
But every sound I hear
becomes a shofar blasting
awake from your sleep!
Time to stretch spiritual muscles
too-long unused, to extend
like a leggy weed.
Inside every shrunken husk
is a spark of holiness, seed
of a world still waiting
to be born. Crack me open.
(read Rachel at The Velveteen Rabbi)
Our readings for today, the twenty fifth Sunday after Pentecost, invite a similar awakening – or cracking open – as they call us to consider how it is we are cultivating holiness in our words, our hearts and our lives: “If you want to first,” Jesus told his disciples – and there is nothing wrong with being first when it comes to serving God – “then you must practice taking last place – living as a servant of all.”
And just so that there would be no misunderstanding, like t
he prophets before him, Jesus symbolically showed his friends what he was talking about: He took a small child into the middle of the room – and cradling the little one said: “Whoever embraces one of these children as I do, embraces me – and far more than me: the Lord who sent me.” (Mark 9: 30-37)This is an invitation – and a challenge – to consciously and carefully put on a new way of living. It is a summons into kingdom conscious-ness – sacred living that brings the blessings of heaven into our ordinary human experience – a request to learn how to become Jesus for the world no matter where we find ourselves. The artists of God’s wisdom put it poetically in the first song of the Psalter like this:
Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of scoffers; but their delight is in the law of the LORD, and on God’s way they meditate day and night. In this they become like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in their season, and their leaves do not wither. In all that they do, they prosper. The wicked are not so, but
are like chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; for the LORD watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.Bible scholar, Patrick Henry Reardon, notes that three postures are described: walking, standing and sitting. This is a teaching psalm, you see, a consideration of how our lives can become full and rich like that mighty tree that stands beside the water and yields fruit in its season. The wise and awakened soul: “… will not follow – or walk – within the counsel of the godless… nor stand in the way that sinners go or take up a seat among the scoffers.”
+ Are you with me? Nourishing the counter-cultural values of God takes practice the poet is saying. They have to be nourished and cultivated so that our lives bear fruit.
+ Do you recall how St. Paul spoke of the fruit of God’s spirit? In Galatians 5: 22-23 he writes:
What happens when we live in God's way? God brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, a
nd a conviction that a basic holiness permeates all things and all people.We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life on others and able to marshal and direct our energies wisely. Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; harsh rules only get in the way. Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good—crucified—so that the Spirit may grow strong within and among us.
The first thing for us to consider today, then, is this: the way of Jesus and real kingdom living – a life that is fruitful and satisfying and nourishing – is not automatic. It takes practice. Encouragement. Making mistakes and accepting forgiveness – human and divine – over and over again and then learning something from these mistakes.
I love how our friends in AA put it: if you always do, what you’ve always done, you’ll always get, what you’ve always got! And the way of Christ – the way of living into God’s presence so that we are more of a blessing than a curse – is not about always doing what we’ve always done! Joan Chittister said it well:
Life is very short. To get the most out of it,
we must begin to attend to its spiritual dimension without which life is only half lived. Holiness is in the NOW but we often go through life only have conscious of it, asleep or intent on being someplace other than where we are. We need to open our eyes and see things as they exist around us… noting what is valuable and what is not, what enriches and what does not, what is of God and what is not. (Chittister, The Rule of Benedict, p.30)I’m rather fond of the way our mystical cousins in Islam, the Sufis, talk about discipleship and learning to live into God’s kingdom: one insight uses the image of a garbanzo bean – a chick pea – and its journey from garden to soup as the way of maturing into the Spirit. “Gradually the disciple softens and takes on the flavors the cook adds so that eventually he or she is tasty enough to be appealing and nutritious.” (Brussat, Spiritual Literacy, p. 228)
Rumi says: “A chickpea leaps almost over the
rim of the pot where it’s being boiled. “Why are you doing this to me?” it shouts. The cook knocks him down with the ladle. “Don’t you try to jump out.” You think I’m torturing you when I am giving you flavor, so you can mix with spices and rice and be the lovely vitality of a true human being.” Remember when you first drank rain in the garden? That was for this!”Grace first – then pleasure – then a boiling new life begins so that the world has something good to eat. Eventually the chickpea will say to the cook, “Boil me some more, man. Hit me again with that spoon. I can’t do this myself.” (Rumi, The Essential Rumi, Coleman Barks)
Discipleship – or training in the ways of Christ’s kingdom – takes practice before we are tasty enough to bear good fruit. That’s the first insight for today. The second is this: our tongue needs a whole lot of training before it can sing the songs of Zion with anything that resembles sacred music.
You see, modern people don’t pay a lot of attention to the words w
e speak or the way we share them. We tend to think of ourselves as free agents who have purchased the right to say whatever we want whenever we want to. Look at goofy Kanye West at the Video Music Awards shooting off his mouth – or tennis player Serena Williams at the US Open hurling threats and expletives at a judge who made a bad call – and let’s not even go to some of the racist and mean-spirited garbage that fills so-called talk radio.+ That our little tongue of ours can cause a whole world of hurt before we even realize it? Don’t you think that’s true? I know I’ve done it to those I love – maybe you have, too.
+ That’s why the path of spiritual maturity says the proof of God’s grace within and among us is most clearly documented by how well we care for one another.
The fruit of the Spirit is revealed in our words and how we nourish those closest to us.
God's wisdom, begins with a holy life… characterized by getting along with others. It is gentle and reasonable, overflowing with mercy and blessings, not hot one day and cold the next, not two-faced. You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results on
ly if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor. (James 3-4)Compassion and justice are the most authentic signs of a spiritually fruitful life: like Mother Teresa used to say, “Love is a fruit that is in season at all times and within reach of every hand. Always start with love for if you give your time to judging, there will be no time left to love.”
And that brings me to the third insight: why Jesus took a small child, embraced her tenderly and told his disciples to do likewise. The only way to learn the love of Jesus – the only way to let his compassionate kingdom consciousness become flesh within – is to be nourished and coaxed and encouraged – protected and sheltered and instructed – like a small child.
+ You can’t frighten a child into maturity – or abuse her into growing up – or force a tiny body into adulthood although it happens all the time.
+ No, the only way healthy children blossom and bear fruit is if they are cherished and taught. Let me say that again: cherished and taught – not spoiled or neglected – not idealized or left to make their own rules. Cherished and taught.
This isn’t a romantic notion of childhood – children are simultaneously wonderful and annoying – God’s creatures that fill our hearts with joy at the same time they mess their own pants. So please don’t think I am going soft on you, ok?
Jesus is not being sentimental; rather, he wants us to know that if we come to him as a child – open, vulnera
ble and willing to be trained – he will embrace us and show us how to live mature lives that bear fruit. To become adults filled to the brim with grace, we must paradoxically open our hearts and hands to a whole new way of being.We don’t get this by ourselves – we have to be cherished and taught. “For what looks insane on the streets – compassion and grace – is common coin here. What is madness to politicians and many business leaders is life breath here. What is unheard of in nice company is taken for granted here…” (Chittister, p. 41)
For this – this – is the upside down logic of the Jesus life where: You show wisdom by trusting people and handle leadership, by serving. You deal with offenders by forgiving and manage money by sharing. You handle enemies by loving and confront violence with suffering. Because everything is different in the Jesus life… and the key is this: in the Jesus life you handle repentance not by feeling bad but by thinking different. (Rudy Wiebe)
So he took a small child into his arms… And he embraced her tenderly and walking into the middle of the room said: “If anyone wants to be first, you must become last, a servant of all. For whoever welcomes one of these little ones – the broken and confused and vulnerable – in my name not only welcomes me… but the one who sent me.”
Let those who have ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to the church: hear.
Images: Shofar @people.howstuffworks.com/.../printable; Aleksandr Shurlakov, Tenderness @ 02varvara.wordpress.com/...; Psalm 1 @inthylight.wordpress.com/.../; Fruit of the Spirit @ www.tcssunland.org/Character.htm; Words @http://openreflections.wordpress.com/ Sufi @ sunninews.wordpress.com/.../26/wahabism-sufism/; MotherTeresa@ http://offthebeatentrack.blogspot.com/2009_03_01_archive.html; Childlike Joy @http://localism.com/neighbor/woltal?page=9)
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