More and more I have come to believe that one of the best ways our hearts are strengthened, and our souls renewed, is by setting aside regular times for quiet reflection. I believe we all need small moments of unrushed refuge where the Holy Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for human words and nourishes us from the inside out. Like Jesus stepping away from the busyness of his public life to rest completely within the safety of God’s love, our quiet time can incrementally take us into holy tenderness more deeply, too. In this, our connection to creation continues as we are awakened to the potential in every moment. I was moved by the words of poet and singer-songwriter, Carrie Newcomer:
Often it is the fine detail, a small thing,
that snaps me back into the here and now.
Amber light coming through the trees,
I very much appreciate Fr. Thomas Keating’s insight that part of a “parable is to subvert the dis-torted myths by which people live their lives.” Take the myth of the ‘All American Boy’ where most often a young, white man gets straight A’s in college and grad school, climbs the executive ladder, becomes head of a multinational corporation so that he and his family might live happily ever after. Or the myth of the ‘American Dream’ that puts two cars in every garage, vacations in Florida, houses in Spain and all the rest. Keating calls them the national myths of American invincibility and absolute entitlement that have been defined dominant culture for a few hundred years. These myths have been on shaky ground since the Vietnam War and this past year has profoundly dis-qualified them as the pandemic rages and the Black Lives Matter social uprising matures. It doesn’t matter that the Liar in Chief keeps trying to sell us this bill of goods: his base may be nostalgic, but more and more ordinary Americans know it isn’t true.
That’s part of what the emerging Presidential election is all about, yes? The wise souls of the New Story Project have said: Even before the pandemic, we sensed the need to exchange our cultural addiction to separation, selfishness, and scapegoating for a new and better story in which each of us finds our place, our needs are met, our gifts shared, and connection, creativity, and beauty become the most obvious characteristics of our lives – and now that need is undeniable. Interestingly the mustard seed parable speaks directly to this truth but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Here’s the parable’s context: In ancient Israel during Jesus’ time a dysfunctional national myth every bit as troublesome as our own was creating “tension between everyday reality and the vision that Israel was God’s chosen people.” Fr. Keating writes: “From the heyday of national power and prestige during the reign of King David and King Solomon, ancient Israel had been on a downhill slide for several centuries, its kingdom conquered and divided several times over. If one lives in occupied territories, as the Israelites of Jesus’ time did, the question naturally arises: Is this ghastly oppression a punishment from God or is our suffering just a part of the human condition?”
For many living in occupied Israel, the national myth of what a kingdom looked like was symbolized by the great cedar of Lebanon tree. They were like our redwood forests in California: straight and strong, standing two or three hundred feet high or more. They provided shelter for the birds, were used to build the temple in Jerusalem, and evoked a sense that Israel’s kingdom would once again be the greatest of all nations “just as the cedar of Lebanon was the greatest of all trees.” To which Jesus said, “Well, not really, the kingdom of God is more like a… mustard seed planted in a garden.”
See where this is going? Those who heard this back in the day knew that not only was the mustard seed the smallest and most insignificant seed, hardly a cedar of Lebanon, but it was also prohibited by the rabbis as unclean. Over time, you see, “the Jewish view of the world identified order with holiness and disorder with that which was unclean.” Think how the Bible starts: The Spirit brings order to the chaos and creates clearly defined clusters of life with distinct boundaries between the land and the water, the heavens and the earth, the mammals and the fish, etc. This story emerged during Israel’s captivity in Babylon when the scribes and priests had to figure out a NEW Jewish identity beyond the old sacrificial order of the now demolished Temple in Jerusalem. One aspect of this new way included extremely clear divisions separating what was kosher and what was not. This meant there were strict rules about “what could be planted in a household garden. The rabbinical law of diverse kinds ruled that one could not mix certain plants in the same garden making the mustard seed forbidden because it was so fast spreading that it would invade the space of all the other plants.” (Keating p. 38)
Right away those who were paying attention knew that Jesus was telling them something upsetting because he likened the kingdom of God to an unclean mustard seed. But that’s not all – mustard seeds produce a fast spreading, invasive plant that only grows about four feet high. It has a few branches, and with a bit of imagination, you might be able to house a few birds in its shade, but it would be pretty shabby. Nothing like the great cedars of Lebanon.
And this, Jesus said, is really what the kingdom of God is like: the polar opposite of the cedars of Lebanon. He was ridiculing the prevailing national myth saying: The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed which somebody planted illegally in their garden. In time it became a shrub where a few scrappy birds were able to nest in its modest branches – but that’s it! Now there are some beautiful, humbling truths being shared here for those with ears to hear. Contrary to ancient Israel’s hope that one day a Messiah would restore their kingdom to the grandeur of the cedar, Jesus said, “It’s time to look for “God in everyday life – a humble and tender God – who brings us small blessings” in the most ordinary circumstances. No need to wait for an apocalyptic deliver-ance: the kingdom is available right now and right here. He also offers three more insights:
· First, Jesus wants us to know that God is NOT going to intervene in the world to
force us to do anything. Social justice is for us to do: we have been given the moral tools and natural resources to construct a society that cares for one another. So, we must do our work and not wait around for some final judgement or apocalypse. That’s what I find so moving about the organizing being done by the Rev. Dr. William Barber. He and his wise cadre of servants understand: This nation has invested in systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation, and the militarization of our communities for too long. Now is the time to invest in expanding democracy and establishing peace and justice across the land. Before COVID-19 there were 140 million people who were poor or one emergency away from poverty. In the past few months, millions more have lost their jobs. Tens of millions are on the brink of eviction. Millions more are forced to pick between their lives and their livelihoods. Too many of us lack healthcare in the face of a deadly virus. And this is to say nothing of the environmental crisis before us. In other words, we have some work to do so let’s get ON with it! (If I were preaching right now in a church I’d ask: can I get an amen?!) That’s first.
· Second, as we give up our grandiose theologies, we’re going to be delighted, surprised, and maybe even scandalized at all the ordinary places where God is at work. Don’t look to the cathedrals or temples, just get over to the family garden plot that you take for granted. “The kingdom is going to be found in everyday lives with its ups and downs and humility because God’s presence - the kingdom - is accessible to everybody.” Not just spiritual giants or the most pious. And not just those who can afford it. Everyone is welcome into this very humble and tender kingdom.
· And third, we need to start saying that grace is like that mustard shrub that grows and spreads but will never turn us into a cedar of Lebanon. The good news is that we are just a bush – and an ordinary bush that some have labeled unclean at that – but this bush that most will barely notice unless we have eyes to see keeps can help mature into nondual thinking and contemplative consciousness if we’re paying attention for it inverts everything.
Now that’s one layer of this parable: Christ’s invitation to celebrate a small is holy way of being. He is teaching us that tenderness and humility are at the heart of the kingdom. That grace grows within our ordinary lives in ways that are rarely heroic, but always simple and satisfying. Not grandiose but available to everyone. And, I love this – that God’s kingdom is here – in the light that was already all around me – in the ordinary – in the little things of real life. I’ve recently reclaimed a little prayer song to underscore this new way of being.
If you want your dream to be – take your time – go slowly
Do few things but do them well – heartfelt work grows purely
If you want to live life free – take your time – go slowly
Do few things but do them well – heartfelt work grows purely
This little tune written by Donovan for Franco Zeffirelli’s movie about Saint Francis called, “Brother Sun, Sister Moon” keeps popping back into my consciousness and helping me to get focused. You see, at its heart is the experience Francis had after being wounded in the Crusades. For weeks he was delirious with fever and pain, slipping in and out of consciousness. When he finally regained a measure of clarity, he felt the urge to pray. Going into the small, run down chapel of San Damiano, Francis knelt before a Byzantine cross in quiet contemplation. At some point he sensed that Jesus was speaking to him from the Cross saying: Francis, rebuild my church. Who knows exactly why but Francis didn’t want to be complicated in responding to this request – so he took it literally. Stone by stone, he began to physically rebuild the collapsing chapel in San Damiano until it was restored to beauty: a chapel where the wounded, broken outcasts of his community could praise God in humility rather than feel judged in the main church in Assisi. This wee song celebrates the simplicity – the small is holy quality of Franciscan spirituality – and it speaks to my heart.
If you want your dream to be – take your time – go slowly
Do few things but do them well – heartfelt work grows purely
If you want to live life free – take your time – go slowly
Do few things but do them well – heartfelt work grows purely
Day by day, stone by stone, build your secret slowly
Day by day, you’ll grow too, you’ll know heaven’s glory
If you want you dream to be – take your time go slowly…
Do few things but do them well – heartfelt work grows purely
Ok, that’s the core of the parable’s theology: it is an invitation to discern God’s presence in the small, ordinary parts of our lives. It rejects our grandiose myths and invites us to simply grow in our small gardens and share that blessing. But I have come to believe that there is another part to this parable, too.
In the context of our contagion the parable’s nondual vision asks us to listen to what nature is trying to compassionately communicate with us and move beyond our either/or obsessions. Maybe seven years ago while I was still a local church pastor, our Sunday School curriculum included a five-week session called: The Season of Creation. Because I always felt jammed for time in those days, I didn’t pay much attention at first. But as the church program year started, and the Sunday School got into it, I had to get up to speed. In doing so, I learned that in 1989, the Ecumenical Patriarch of the Orthodox Church proclaimed September 1st to be an Orthodox Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation. Soon congregations in New Zealand, the UK, Canada, and Europe formed a consortium of churches to collaborate on the creation of a new liturgical season. From September 1st through the Feast Day of St. Francis on October 4 Christians throughout the world would try to reclaim the voice of God’s first word, creation itself, and respond with love in worship, study, and action. Pope Francis eventually embraced this in 2015 and now the Season of Creation is observed through thousands of local churches in all our denominations.
Working with the liturgies and study materials of the Season of Creation, I realized that I had never considered that the sea might truly be singing God’s praise, that the forest might be warning us about climate change, or that the creatures of the desert might be trying to tell us about their joys as well as their sorrows. In a word, I came up against my own anthropocentrism – my bias that placed humanity above all of nature – in the belief that only humans thought and spoke and had feelings. Every week during this new creation season, I had to listen to the water. Or the animals, or the mountains and deserts, the forests, rivers lakes, and trees. And slowly my awareness shifted as I came to trust that not only was ALL of creation speaking and praising God, but much of creation was also trying to communicate with humanity but we weren’t doing a very good job at listening. It was a deep shift in my consciousness, and I am still only a novice with a lot more to learn. For the past few years I have started to prayerfully listen to the spirituality of our seasons and learn from Mother Earth how to live in community with nature.
As I read through the Bible’s words this week about creation groaning like a woman in travail, about the Holy Spirit interceding for all of creation with sighs too deep for human words, and the kingdom of God in a mustard seed, I sat up and took notice. I had just come across an article by Timothy Seekings of the Gratefulness Network about the work of artists, monastics, and epidemiologists who believe nature is trying to communicate with us in a constructive manner through epidemics. I’ll post the whole article online but an overview begins with a recent documentary by artist James Bridle titled, “Se ti sabir,” an essay by Brother David Steindl-Rast called, ‘Spirituality as Common Sense,‘ and the work of David-Waltner Towes concerning the “language of epidemics.”
Artist James Bridle was fascinated that between the eleventh and the nineteenth centuries a lingua franca was created around the Mediterranean using a pidgin language to facilitate trade, travel, and communication between members of different nations. In this language, the word “sabir” – spelled S-A-B-I-R – meant “to know.” It was used as a question and a greeting where people would meet and ask: Sabir? Do you know lingua franca and can we speak together?” Bridle wonders if a new lingua franca might exist as artificial intelligence becomes increasingly sophisticated and we realize that other types of intelligences exist in nature, in plants, in animals and other ecological communities. As we come to grips empirically with the fact that humans possess multiple forms of knowledge within a living planet shared with other types of intelligences – and the idea that the mind is not an exclusively human feature is taking root – could a new lingua franca be possible within the totality of nature?
Brother David Steindl-Rast, a monk on the cutting edge of spirituality and science for 30 years, provides a tentative answer suggesting that common sense does not refer just to problem solving, but is more like the basic human senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. "These allow us to connect to the world around us – and are not exclusive to human beings. All life connects to the surrounding world through these common senses. Humans know this whenever we connect with animals, trees, or other parts of nature with awe, gratitude, or wonder. If this is so, is it possible for all of life itself to have a common language? We know that all life shares a common code: DNA and RNA. Is it possible for life to have a common language of the senses, not a language based on a system of semiotics, but based on a common sense, a language that we might understand in principle through feeling?"
Cut to the work of Dr. David Waltner-Towes who has been studying the newly
emerging infectious diseases like MERS, SARS, and H5N1. He has shown how these are not random occurrences, but the consequences of human actions and inaction as well as the result of dominant social and economic structures. He believes these infectious outbreaks can be understood as “complex messages from the natural world” and points to the example of livestock. “The domestication of animals in human history brought with it zoonosis, the leaping of pathogens from other animal species to humankind. Most harmful diseases that we have faced throughout history originate from livestock. And among the diseases to emerge in recent decades, 70 percent are of animal origin. That’s one insight from human action.” (Seekings, p. 4)
Another stems from our inaction. “Once pathogens make the leap to humans, they encounter breeding grounds like modern, densely populated but socially alienated cities, in which healthcare is more about treating diseases than wellness. In 2008 the WHO determined that the main social determinant of health was social injustice, and still income gaps continue to expand, and unequal distribution of power, money, and resources persist.” Because our economic commitment is always to growth rather than sustenance, we have created a mass of marginalized poor people, isolated from access to everyday wellness care but essential worker cogs in our so-called service economy. He goes on to say: “As we push farther and farther into primary forests and protected areas, bringing humans, livestock, trade, and travel closer together we are creating the perfect storm that welcomes zoonotic passageways for pathogens to take up residence in the human species.”
New epidemics are therefore not freak occurrences that will simply go away a la Trump. They are the consequences of decisions, economic systems, “pressures, relationships, and structures that are innate to the modern global (economic) system of our modern lifestyles. And they are trying to tell us something. “Decades ago,” the Seekings article concludes, “ethnobotanist Terrence Mckenna stated that “nature is alive and talking to us and this is not a metaphor.” Waltner-Toews has now documented how this must be understood in relation to epidemics.
· If nature is alive and talking to us, it has been sending a lot of messages – and it is well past time to consider what life’s lingua franca, this common sense shared by living beings, is telling us. We must literally come our senses and begin to listen. Covid-19 is not a random problem, but a “complex message from nature that we have failed to perceive because we don’t understand the language.” Americans are pig-headed when it comes to learning the language of another: we want English only and GO USA! We’re equally stubborn when it comes to honoring science. But now is the time to become multilingual and “learn the lingua franca of our living planet.”
· Remember our Scriptures begin with a story that in the beginning God formed all creation – all living beings were formed from within the heart of that creation – and God cherished what God created and called it good. Then God formed man and woman in the divine image from out of that same earth that the rest of creation was formed, and God called them very, very good. God created life in balance with a place for every living being in a way that sharing by all meant scarcity for none. When we are out of balance our story tells us that ALL of creation groans like a woman in travail – the soil, the air, the water, the trees, the animals, the sea – and we ourselves.
Every day in the US another 70,000 people are being infected by the current contagion and over 14 million have been infected throughout God’s creation. I have come to believe that the tender, contemplative consciousness of Jesus is telling us to trust that the kingdom of God is like that mustard seed – and it is urging us to listen to what God’s creation is trying to communicate to us in this virus. We cannot thrive any longer with grandiose notions of power, American dreams that divide and conquer God’s children according to race, gender, and class. We cannot continue with cedar of Lebanon mythologies that deny our inter-connectedness with nature and every other living being. And we cannot exist any longer with just an America First lie that deny the wisdom of the cosmos.
· The mustard seed is telling us to get real. To get small. To trust our vulnerability and tenderness. For then the blessings of grace will be seen for we will have eyes to see and ears to hear. Our work is to keep on keeping on: keep on encouraging one another, keep on trusting the marriage of heaven and earth, the unity of science and spirit, tenderness, and justice for in this doing our part as the Lord requires.
· Of course, there are moments when we get tired of waiting. "Remember: God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. The Spirit will do our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. God’s Spirit knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love is being transformed into something good. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? No way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing. None of this fazes us because Christ’s love is within us and God’s Spirit among us. That is why, like St. Paul, I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because that is how God structure creation." (Romans 8, The Message)
Amber light coming through the trees,
the slipper soft sound of creek water
Running beneath a tender filigree of ice,
Ella-Bear, my mutt dog, rolling in the fresh snow,
The give and chop of a carrot on the cutting board,
The image of two grown men, wiping tears of laughter,
Running beneath a tender filigree of ice,
Ella-Bear, my mutt dog, rolling in the fresh snow,
The give and chop of a carrot on the cutting board,
The image of two grown men, wiping tears of laughter,
from the crinkled edges of their eyes.
It is as easy to be lost as it is hard to be lost,
But I am growing bored with tomorrow,
With what will be and how I will be then,
Weary of worried speculation or detached dreaming
Which are phantoms only, the flip side of creative imagining.
I am happiest these days when yesterday is an old friend
With whom I share much history, and tomorrow is willing to wait
For its own time above the horizon line.
I am most content now when I hold my own life
Right here, in the bowl of my cupped hands,
And sense that the hollow spaces are actually filled with Light,
Light that was already there, before I knew to look.
Like a pot of hot Scottish Breakfast tea in the morning, I need simple, quiet times every day to lead me back from the fury and fear of these days and into the light that was already there before I knew to look. It is how I practice choosing life over death. It is where I learn to embody my place within the sacred unity of the cosmos. It is when I most trust most the hallowed albeit paradoxical connection between my greatest need and my greatest gift. It is why I comprehend my calling to be part of our existential gestalt that links social justice to spirituality, physical and emotional health to meaning-filled work and play, community to solitude as well as faith, hope and love to the arts, history, sexuality and the values we embody as we move throughout our ordinary, everyday lives. And it is from within these on-going encounters with contemplation that I know St. Paul’s words about God working good from even the whole of creation groaning in travail like a woman in labor to be true.
· Frederick Buechner captured the essence of our particularity being embraced by the universal when he wrote: we stand on holy ground when we’re in that place where our deepest gladness meets the world’s greatest need.
· And I think that all of this and more is happening when Jesus playfully ponders: “What is the kingdom of God like? And to what can I compare it? Well, it is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in the garden; it grew and became at tree so that the birds of the air made nests in its branches.”
What I hope to share with you today is an interpretation of this parable that includes its immediate significance for our individual spiritual journeys as well as what the voice of nature might be saying to all of us in the unfolding covid pandemic.
Jesus told parables for two reasons: it was a politically safe way to talk about dangerous things in a symbolic form, and, the upside-down nature of parabolic logic trained the hearts of those closest to him in the ways of non-dual thinking. Fr. Richard Rohr likes to say that “Jesus was the first nondual religious teacher in the West.” Dualistic thought is seeing reality “from the position of our small and private self.” We ask: “What’s in it for me?” or “How will I look if I do this?” Rohr writes:
It is the ego’s preferred way of seeing reality and is essentially binary, either/or thinking. It knows by comparison, opposition, and differentiation. It uses descriptive words like good/evil, pretty/ugly, smart/stupid, not realizing there may be a hundred degrees between the two ends of each spectrum. Dualistic thinking works well for the sake of simplification and conversation, but not for the sake of truth or the immense subtlety of actual personal experience. Nondual thinking, or contemplative consciousness, is seeing without judgment, without labeling anything up or down, good or bad. It is a pure and positive gaze, unattached to outcome or critique… it does not come naturally to modern and postmodern people. You have to work at it and develop practices whereby you can recognize your compulsive and repetitive patterns and allow yourself to be freed from them. Moments of great love and great suffering are often the first experiences of nondual thinking. And practices of prayer largely maintain what many people first experience in deep love and suffering. (Richard Rohr, Center for Action and Contemplation, January 30, 2017)
· By using parables Jesus was simultaneously doing a spiritual dance that challenged the prevailing religious mythology of first century Palestine, and, helping his disciples practice nondual thinking. He wanted them to have eyes that could see from the heart into all the connections God had built into creation.
· In the parable of the mustard seed, Jesus was saying that the kingdom of God was NOT about power, but the quiet presence of peace in our ordinary lives. He also said that humanity is NOT the crown of creation, but just a part of a unified matrix of life.
It is as easy to be lost as it is hard to be lost,
But I am growing bored with tomorrow,
With what will be and how I will be then,
Weary of worried speculation or detached dreaming
Which are phantoms only, the flip side of creative imagining.
I am happiest these days when yesterday is an old friend
With whom I share much history, and tomorrow is willing to wait
For its own time above the horizon line.
I am most content now when I hold my own life
Right here, in the bowl of my cupped hands,
And sense that the hollow spaces are actually filled with Light,
Light that was already there, before I knew to look.
Like a pot of hot Scottish Breakfast tea in the morning, I need simple, quiet times every day to lead me back from the fury and fear of these days and into the light that was already there before I knew to look. It is how I practice choosing life over death. It is where I learn to embody my place within the sacred unity of the cosmos. It is when I most trust most the hallowed albeit paradoxical connection between my greatest need and my greatest gift. It is why I comprehend my calling to be part of our existential gestalt that links social justice to spirituality, physical and emotional health to meaning-filled work and play, community to solitude as well as faith, hope and love to the arts, history, sexuality and the values we embody as we move throughout our ordinary, everyday lives. And it is from within these on-going encounters with contemplation that I know St. Paul’s words about God working good from even the whole of creation groaning in travail like a woman in labor to be true.
· Frederick Buechner captured the essence of our particularity being embraced by the universal when he wrote: we stand on holy ground when we’re in that place where our deepest gladness meets the world’s greatest need.
· And I think that all of this and more is happening when Jesus playfully ponders: “What is the kingdom of God like? And to what can I compare it? Well, it is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in the garden; it grew and became at tree so that the birds of the air made nests in its branches.”
What I hope to share with you today is an interpretation of this parable that includes its immediate significance for our individual spiritual journeys as well as what the voice of nature might be saying to all of us in the unfolding covid pandemic.
Jesus told parables for two reasons: it was a politically safe way to talk about dangerous things in a symbolic form, and, the upside-down nature of parabolic logic trained the hearts of those closest to him in the ways of non-dual thinking. Fr. Richard Rohr likes to say that “Jesus was the first nondual religious teacher in the West.” Dualistic thought is seeing reality “from the position of our small and private self.” We ask: “What’s in it for me?” or “How will I look if I do this?” Rohr writes:
It is the ego’s preferred way of seeing reality and is essentially binary, either/or thinking. It knows by comparison, opposition, and differentiation. It uses descriptive words like good/evil, pretty/ugly, smart/stupid, not realizing there may be a hundred degrees between the two ends of each spectrum. Dualistic thinking works well for the sake of simplification and conversation, but not for the sake of truth or the immense subtlety of actual personal experience. Nondual thinking, or contemplative consciousness, is seeing without judgment, without labeling anything up or down, good or bad. It is a pure and positive gaze, unattached to outcome or critique… it does not come naturally to modern and postmodern people. You have to work at it and develop practices whereby you can recognize your compulsive and repetitive patterns and allow yourself to be freed from them. Moments of great love and great suffering are often the first experiences of nondual thinking. And practices of prayer largely maintain what many people first experience in deep love and suffering. (Richard Rohr, Center for Action and Contemplation, January 30, 2017)
· By using parables Jesus was simultaneously doing a spiritual dance that challenged the prevailing religious mythology of first century Palestine, and, helping his disciples practice nondual thinking. He wanted them to have eyes that could see from the heart into all the connections God had built into creation.
· In the parable of the mustard seed, Jesus was saying that the kingdom of God was NOT about power, but the quiet presence of peace in our ordinary lives. He also said that humanity is NOT the crown of creation, but just a part of a unified matrix of life.
That’s part of what the emerging Presidential election is all about, yes? The wise souls of the New Story Project have said: Even before the pandemic, we sensed the need to exchange our cultural addiction to separation, selfishness, and scapegoating for a new and better story in which each of us finds our place, our needs are met, our gifts shared, and connection, creativity, and beauty become the most obvious characteristics of our lives – and now that need is undeniable. Interestingly the mustard seed parable speaks directly to this truth but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Here’s the parable’s context: In ancient Israel during Jesus’ time a dysfunctional national myth every bit as troublesome as our own was creating “tension between everyday reality and the vision that Israel was God’s chosen people.” Fr. Keating writes: “From the heyday of national power and prestige during the reign of King David and King Solomon, ancient Israel had been on a downhill slide for several centuries, its kingdom conquered and divided several times over. If one lives in occupied territories, as the Israelites of Jesus’ time did, the question naturally arises: Is this ghastly oppression a punishment from God or is our suffering just a part of the human condition?”
For many living in occupied Israel, the national myth of what a kingdom looked like was symbolized by the great cedar of Lebanon tree. They were like our redwood forests in California: straight and strong, standing two or three hundred feet high or more. They provided shelter for the birds, were used to build the temple in Jerusalem, and evoked a sense that Israel’s kingdom would once again be the greatest of all nations “just as the cedar of Lebanon was the greatest of all trees.” To which Jesus said, “Well, not really, the kingdom of God is more like a… mustard seed planted in a garden.”
See where this is going? Those who heard this back in the day knew that not only was the mustard seed the smallest and most insignificant seed, hardly a cedar of Lebanon, but it was also prohibited by the rabbis as unclean. Over time, you see, “the Jewish view of the world identified order with holiness and disorder with that which was unclean.” Think how the Bible starts: The Spirit brings order to the chaos and creates clearly defined clusters of life with distinct boundaries between the land and the water, the heavens and the earth, the mammals and the fish, etc. This story emerged during Israel’s captivity in Babylon when the scribes and priests had to figure out a NEW Jewish identity beyond the old sacrificial order of the now demolished Temple in Jerusalem. One aspect of this new way included extremely clear divisions separating what was kosher and what was not. This meant there were strict rules about “what could be planted in a household garden. The rabbinical law of diverse kinds ruled that one could not mix certain plants in the same garden making the mustard seed forbidden because it was so fast spreading that it would invade the space of all the other plants.” (Keating p. 38)
Right away those who were paying attention knew that Jesus was telling them something upsetting because he likened the kingdom of God to an unclean mustard seed. But that’s not all – mustard seeds produce a fast spreading, invasive plant that only grows about four feet high. It has a few branches, and with a bit of imagination, you might be able to house a few birds in its shade, but it would be pretty shabby. Nothing like the great cedars of Lebanon.
And this, Jesus said, is really what the kingdom of God is like: the polar opposite of the cedars of Lebanon. He was ridiculing the prevailing national myth saying: The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed which somebody planted illegally in their garden. In time it became a shrub where a few scrappy birds were able to nest in its modest branches – but that’s it! Now there are some beautiful, humbling truths being shared here for those with ears to hear. Contrary to ancient Israel’s hope that one day a Messiah would restore their kingdom to the grandeur of the cedar, Jesus said, “It’s time to look for “God in everyday life – a humble and tender God – who brings us small blessings” in the most ordinary circumstances. No need to wait for an apocalyptic deliver-ance: the kingdom is available right now and right here. He also offers three more insights:
· First, Jesus wants us to know that God is NOT going to intervene in the world to
· Second, as we give up our grandiose theologies, we’re going to be delighted, surprised, and maybe even scandalized at all the ordinary places where God is at work. Don’t look to the cathedrals or temples, just get over to the family garden plot that you take for granted. “The kingdom is going to be found in everyday lives with its ups and downs and humility because God’s presence - the kingdom - is accessible to everybody.” Not just spiritual giants or the most pious. And not just those who can afford it. Everyone is welcome into this very humble and tender kingdom.
· And third, we need to start saying that grace is like that mustard shrub that grows and spreads but will never turn us into a cedar of Lebanon. The good news is that we are just a bush – and an ordinary bush that some have labeled unclean at that – but this bush that most will barely notice unless we have eyes to see keeps can help mature into nondual thinking and contemplative consciousness if we’re paying attention for it inverts everything.
Now that’s one layer of this parable: Christ’s invitation to celebrate a small is holy way of being. He is teaching us that tenderness and humility are at the heart of the kingdom. That grace grows within our ordinary lives in ways that are rarely heroic, but always simple and satisfying. Not grandiose but available to everyone. And, I love this – that God’s kingdom is here – in the light that was already all around me – in the ordinary – in the little things of real life. I’ve recently reclaimed a little prayer song to underscore this new way of being.
If you want your dream to be – take your time – go slowly
Do few things but do them well – heartfelt work grows purely
If you want to live life free – take your time – go slowly
Do few things but do them well – heartfelt work grows purely
This little tune written by Donovan for Franco Zeffirelli’s movie about Saint Francis called, “Brother Sun, Sister Moon” keeps popping back into my consciousness and helping me to get focused. You see, at its heart is the experience Francis had after being wounded in the Crusades. For weeks he was delirious with fever and pain, slipping in and out of consciousness. When he finally regained a measure of clarity, he felt the urge to pray. Going into the small, run down chapel of San Damiano, Francis knelt before a Byzantine cross in quiet contemplation. At some point he sensed that Jesus was speaking to him from the Cross saying: Francis, rebuild my church. Who knows exactly why but Francis didn’t want to be complicated in responding to this request – so he took it literally. Stone by stone, he began to physically rebuild the collapsing chapel in San Damiano until it was restored to beauty: a chapel where the wounded, broken outcasts of his community could praise God in humility rather than feel judged in the main church in Assisi. This wee song celebrates the simplicity – the small is holy quality of Franciscan spirituality – and it speaks to my heart.
Do few things but do them well – heartfelt work grows purely
If you want to live life free – take your time – go slowly
Do few things but do them well – heartfelt work grows purely
Day by day, stone by stone, build your secret slowly
Day by day, you’ll grow too, you’ll know heaven’s glory
If you want you dream to be – take your time go slowly…
Do few things but do them well – heartfelt work grows purely
Ok, that’s the core of the parable’s theology: it is an invitation to discern God’s presence in the small, ordinary parts of our lives. It rejects our grandiose myths and invites us to simply grow in our small gardens and share that blessing. But I have come to believe that there is another part to this parable, too.
In the context of our contagion the parable’s nondual vision asks us to listen to what nature is trying to compassionately communicate with us and move beyond our either/or obsessions. Maybe seven years ago while I was still a local church pastor, our Sunday School curriculum included a five-week session called: The Season of Creation. Because I always felt jammed for time in those days, I didn’t pay much attention at first. But as the church program year started, and the Sunday School got into it, I had to get up to speed. In doing so, I learned that in 1989, the Ecumenical Patriarch of the Orthodox Church proclaimed September 1st to be an Orthodox Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation. Soon congregations in New Zealand, the UK, Canada, and Europe formed a consortium of churches to collaborate on the creation of a new liturgical season. From September 1st through the Feast Day of St. Francis on October 4 Christians throughout the world would try to reclaim the voice of God’s first word, creation itself, and respond with love in worship, study, and action. Pope Francis eventually embraced this in 2015 and now the Season of Creation is observed through thousands of local churches in all our denominations.
Working with the liturgies and study materials of the Season of Creation, I realized that I had never considered that the sea might truly be singing God’s praise, that the forest might be warning us about climate change, or that the creatures of the desert might be trying to tell us about their joys as well as their sorrows. In a word, I came up against my own anthropocentrism – my bias that placed humanity above all of nature – in the belief that only humans thought and spoke and had feelings. Every week during this new creation season, I had to listen to the water. Or the animals, or the mountains and deserts, the forests, rivers lakes, and trees. And slowly my awareness shifted as I came to trust that not only was ALL of creation speaking and praising God, but much of creation was also trying to communicate with humanity but we weren’t doing a very good job at listening. It was a deep shift in my consciousness, and I am still only a novice with a lot more to learn. For the past few years I have started to prayerfully listen to the spirituality of our seasons and learn from Mother Earth how to live in community with nature.
As I read through the Bible’s words this week about creation groaning like a woman in travail, about the Holy Spirit interceding for all of creation with sighs too deep for human words, and the kingdom of God in a mustard seed, I sat up and took notice. I had just come across an article by Timothy Seekings of the Gratefulness Network about the work of artists, monastics, and epidemiologists who believe nature is trying to communicate with us in a constructive manner through epidemics. I’ll post the whole article online but an overview begins with a recent documentary by artist James Bridle titled, “Se ti sabir,” an essay by Brother David Steindl-Rast called, ‘Spirituality as Common Sense,‘ and the work of David-Waltner Towes concerning the “language of epidemics.”
Artist James Bridle was fascinated that between the eleventh and the nineteenth centuries a lingua franca was created around the Mediterranean using a pidgin language to facilitate trade, travel, and communication between members of different nations. In this language, the word “sabir” – spelled S-A-B-I-R – meant “to know.” It was used as a question and a greeting where people would meet and ask: Sabir? Do you know lingua franca and can we speak together?” Bridle wonders if a new lingua franca might exist as artificial intelligence becomes increasingly sophisticated and we realize that other types of intelligences exist in nature, in plants, in animals and other ecological communities. As we come to grips empirically with the fact that humans possess multiple forms of knowledge within a living planet shared with other types of intelligences – and the idea that the mind is not an exclusively human feature is taking root – could a new lingua franca be possible within the totality of nature?
Brother David Steindl-Rast, a monk on the cutting edge of spirituality and science for 30 years, provides a tentative answer suggesting that common sense does not refer just to problem solving, but is more like the basic human senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. "These allow us to connect to the world around us – and are not exclusive to human beings. All life connects to the surrounding world through these common senses. Humans know this whenever we connect with animals, trees, or other parts of nature with awe, gratitude, or wonder. If this is so, is it possible for all of life itself to have a common language? We know that all life shares a common code: DNA and RNA. Is it possible for life to have a common language of the senses, not a language based on a system of semiotics, but based on a common sense, a language that we might understand in principle through feeling?"
Cut to the work of Dr. David Waltner-Towes who has been studying the newly
Another stems from our inaction. “Once pathogens make the leap to humans, they encounter breeding grounds like modern, densely populated but socially alienated cities, in which healthcare is more about treating diseases than wellness. In 2008 the WHO determined that the main social determinant of health was social injustice, and still income gaps continue to expand, and unequal distribution of power, money, and resources persist.” Because our economic commitment is always to growth rather than sustenance, we have created a mass of marginalized poor people, isolated from access to everyday wellness care but essential worker cogs in our so-called service economy. He goes on to say: “As we push farther and farther into primary forests and protected areas, bringing humans, livestock, trade, and travel closer together we are creating the perfect storm that welcomes zoonotic passageways for pathogens to take up residence in the human species.”
New epidemics are therefore not freak occurrences that will simply go away a la Trump. They are the consequences of decisions, economic systems, “pressures, relationships, and structures that are innate to the modern global (economic) system of our modern lifestyles. And they are trying to tell us something. “Decades ago,” the Seekings article concludes, “ethnobotanist Terrence Mckenna stated that “nature is alive and talking to us and this is not a metaphor.” Waltner-Toews has now documented how this must be understood in relation to epidemics.
· If nature is alive and talking to us, it has been sending a lot of messages – and it is well past time to consider what life’s lingua franca, this common sense shared by living beings, is telling us. We must literally come our senses and begin to listen. Covid-19 is not a random problem, but a “complex message from nature that we have failed to perceive because we don’t understand the language.” Americans are pig-headed when it comes to learning the language of another: we want English only and GO USA! We’re equally stubborn when it comes to honoring science. But now is the time to become multilingual and “learn the lingua franca of our living planet.”
· Remember our Scriptures begin with a story that in the beginning God formed all creation – all living beings were formed from within the heart of that creation – and God cherished what God created and called it good. Then God formed man and woman in the divine image from out of that same earth that the rest of creation was formed, and God called them very, very good. God created life in balance with a place for every living being in a way that sharing by all meant scarcity for none. When we are out of balance our story tells us that ALL of creation groans like a woman in travail – the soil, the air, the water, the trees, the animals, the sea – and we ourselves.
Every day in the US another 70,000 people are being infected by the current contagion and over 14 million have been infected throughout God’s creation. I have come to believe that the tender, contemplative consciousness of Jesus is telling us to trust that the kingdom of God is like that mustard seed – and it is urging us to listen to what God’s creation is trying to communicate to us in this virus. We cannot thrive any longer with grandiose notions of power, American dreams that divide and conquer God’s children according to race, gender, and class. We cannot continue with cedar of Lebanon mythologies that deny our inter-connectedness with nature and every other living being. And we cannot exist any longer with just an America First lie that deny the wisdom of the cosmos.
· The mustard seed is telling us to get real. To get small. To trust our vulnerability and tenderness. For then the blessings of grace will be seen for we will have eyes to see and ears to hear. Our work is to keep on keeping on: keep on encouraging one another, keep on trusting the marriage of heaven and earth, the unity of science and spirit, tenderness, and justice for in this doing our part as the Lord requires.
· Of course, there are moments when we get tired of waiting. "Remember: God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. The Spirit will do our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. God’s Spirit knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love is being transformed into something good. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? No way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing. None of this fazes us because Christ’s love is within us and God’s Spirit among us. That is why, like St. Paul, I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because that is how God structure creation." (Romans 8, The Message)
No comments:
Post a Comment